Updated October 1, 2026: Each current age and net worth in the ranked list now matches the person's Forbes real-time profile as of October 1, 2026. That moves the Mercor cofounders to 23 (they became billionaires at 22), Shayne Coplan to 28, James Dacombe to 26 and Luca Del Vecchio to 25, and changes three net worths: Clemente Del Vecchio $5.1B (previously listed here at $7.2B), Luca Del Vecchio $5.1B (previously $5.9B) and Johannes von Baumbach $6.4B (previously $6.5B). Corrections to the previous version: Forbes puts Johannes von Baumbach seven weeks older than Amelie Voigt Trejes, not "about three weeks"; Clemente Del Vecchio now ranks ahead of Kim Jung-youn, matching Forbes' age order; the four Anthropic cofounders are 36 to 39, per Forbes; Lukas Walton is the richest of the Forbes 400's ten youngest, not worth more than the other nine combined; and James Dacombe is no longer described as one of the 12 self-made under-30s on Forbes' March 2026 list, since he became a billionaire in August 2026. The page previously called this "the ten youngest" billionaires; it is a selected list, because others, including Amelie's older twin brothers Pedro and Felipe, also qualify by age. Details we could not source were removed, including a 30.78% NXC stake figure for Kim Jung-youn, a description of Amelie Voigt Trejes as a university student, and a note on Luca Del Vecchio's birth year.
Amelie Voigt Trejes, 21, is the youngest billionaire alive, worth $1.1 billion from a stake in Brazil's WEG. The youngest self-made billionaire is 23-year-old Surya Midha, one of three Mercor cofounders who became billionaires at 22, younger than Mark Zuckerberg was when he joined Forbes' billionaires list.
Forbes counted a record 35 billionaires under 30 on its March 2026 World's Billionaires list, worth a combined $92.4 billion, and a record 12 of them built that wealth themselves rather than inheriting it. Below are ten selected young billionaires, ranked by age, with each one's age and net worth from their Forbes real-time profile as of October 1, 2026, their source of wealth, and whether the money came from a company they started or a family stake. It is not an exhaustive top 10: Amelie Voigt Trejes's older twin brothers, for instance, also qualify by age but aren't broken out separately here.
Who Are the Youngest Billionaires in 2026?
The youngest billionaires on this selected list range from age 21 to 28 and split evenly between two paths: family stakes in established companies such as Boehringer Ingelheim (founded 1885), WEG (cofounded 1961), Nexon and EssilorLuxottica, and founders of companies started between 2020 and 2024. Amelie Voigt Trejes, 21, holds the youngest-overall title; Johannes von Baumbach, the German pharma heir she displaced, is seven weeks older, according to Forbes. Mercor's three cofounders, who became billionaires at 22 in October 2025, hold the youngest-self-made title.
The Full Table: Age, Net Worth, and Source of Wealth
| # | Name | Age | Net Worth | Source | Status | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amelie Voigt Trejes | 21 | $1.1B | WEG | Inherited | Brazil |
| 2 | Johannes von Baumbach | 21 | $6.4B | Boehringer Ingelheim | Inherited | Germany |
| 3 | Clemente Del Vecchio | 22 | $5.1B | EssilorLuxottica | Inherited | Italy |
| 4 | Kim Jung-youn | 22 | $1.5B | Nexon / NXC | Inherited | South Korea |
| 5 | Surya Midha | 23 | $2.2B | Mercor | Self-made | USA |
| 6 | Brendan Foody | 23 | $2.2B | Mercor | Self-made | USA |
| 7 | Adarsh Hiremath | 23 | $2.2B | Mercor | Self-made | USA |
| 8 | Luca Del Vecchio | 25 | $5.1B | EssilorLuxottica | Inherited | Italy |
| 9 | James Dacombe | 26 | $1B | Olix | Self-made | United Kingdom |
| 10 | Shayne Coplan | 28 | $1B | Polymarket | Self-made | USA |
Ages and net worths are from each person's Forbes real-time profile as of October 1, 2026: Voigt Trejes, von Baumbach, Clemente Del Vecchio, Kim Jung-youn, Midha, Foody, Hiremath, Luca Del Vecchio, Dacombe, Coplan; Amelie's brothers Pedro and Felipe Voigt Trejes. Background: Forbes, "The World's Youngest Billionaires 2026" (March 10, 2026); Fortune (Mercor, November 12, 2025); Forbes (Shayne Coplan, November 29, 2025); Forbes (James Dacombe, August 15, 2026). Net worths tied to private companies such as Mercor, Polymarket and Olix are Forbes estimates based on the latest funding round and can move sharply with the next one.
Self-Made vs. Inherited: The 35 Billionaires Under 30
Forbes' March 2026 World's Billionaires list, using net worths as of March 1, 2026, found 35 people worth at least $1 billion before their 30th birthday, a record for the ranking. Together they were worth $92.4 billion, down from $152.3 billion for the 35 youngest people on the 2025 list. A record 12 of them are self-made, and by our count of Forbes' list all 12 made their money in AI or prediction markets: Mercor's three cofounders, Cursor's cofounders, Lovable's Fabian Hedin, Scale AI's Alexandr Wang, Kalshi's Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, and Shayne Coplan. The other 23 inherited, including four Boehringer Ingelheim heirs, five WEG heirs and the two Del Vecchio brothers. James Dacombe became a billionaire in August 2026, after this list was compiled.
What the headline misses
"Youngest billionaire" headlines mostly measure a stake in a company, not cash in a bank account. Mercor's $10 billion valuation, Polymarket's $9 billion mark and Olix's $3.3 billion price tag were each set in a private deal rather than by a public market, and each can reprice at the next round: Forbes reported in July 2026 that Mercor was in talks to raise money at $20 billion. The inherited fortunes carry a different caveat. Forbes says Amelie Voigt Trejes holds no board seat or executive position at WEG, and that neither Kim Jung-youn nor her sister has been involved in running Nexon. A place on this list reflects ownership, not necessarily an operating role.
The Forbes 400's Youngest: A Separate, US-Only List (September 2026)
A second "youngest billionaire" headline landed on September 15, 2026, when Forbes published the 2026 Forbes 400, its annual ranking of the richest Americans. It is a different list, with no age cutoff, but it has ten billionaires under 40, up from four a year earlier. Forbes says all seven newcomers among them owe their fortunes to the AI boom, and Yahoo Finance reported that this is the first time the list has had ten members under 40. Steven Hao, the 30-year-old cofounder and CTO of AI coding startup Cognition, is the youngest member of the full Forbes 400, worth an estimated $5.8 billion after Cognition raised $2 billion at a $48 billion valuation in September 2026. He is still two to nine years older than everyone on the global list above; the two rankings measure different things.
| Name | Age | Net Worth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steven Hao | 30 | $5.8B | Cognition (AI coding) |
| Palmer Luckey | 33 | $5.9B | Anduril (defense tech) |
| Vlad Tenev | 39 | $7.1B | Robinhood (carried over from 2025) |
| Tom Brown, Daniela Amodei, Jack Clark, Sam McCandlish | 36–39 | $15.5B each | Anthropic cofounders |
| Edwin Chen | 38 | $18B | Surge AI (carried over from 2025) |
| Greg Brockman | 37 | $25.5B | OpenAI (richest newcomer on the 2026 Forbes 400) |
| Lukas Walton | 39 | $44.4B | Walmart heir (only inherited fortune of the ten) |
One open question for the world list above: Forbes reported on July 9, 2026 that Mercor was in talks to raise $500 million at a $20 billion valuation, double its $10 billion mark, and estimated that each cofounder would be worth $4.3 billion if the round closed. Their Forbes real-time profiles still showed $2.2 billion each as of October 1, 2026, which is the figure used on this page.
How We Ranked the Youngest Billionaires
Ranking is by age, youngest to oldest, using the age on each person's Forbes real-time profile as of October 1, 2026. Where two people share an age, we follow the order of Forbes' World's Youngest Billionaires 2026 report, which lists the under-30s from oldest to youngest. Net worths are the Forbes real-time figures on the same profiles that day. Background on each fortune comes from that Forbes report, Fortune's interview with the Mercor founders, and Forbes' reporting on Shayne Coplan and James Dacombe. We limited the list to people with a Forbes profile showing an age and a net worth, and combined Mercor's three cofounders into one bar in the chart above because their figures are identical. This is a selected list, not an exhaustive top 10: Forbes' 35-person under-30 list includes others who qualify by age, including Amelie Voigt Trejes's older twin brothers Pedro and Felipe and fellow WEG heir Lívia Voigt de Assis. For the full list with country and industry filters, see our interactive Forbes under-30 billionaires dashboard.
A 21-year-old WEG heir and three Mercor cofounders who became billionaires at 22 hold the two youngest-billionaire titles in the world.
The youngest-self-made title changed hands twice in October 2025 alone.
Originally published in the Trace Cohen newsletter at Value Add VC.
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