Amelie Voigt Trejes turned 20 in 2026 and is the youngest billionaire alive, worth $1.1 billion from a stake in Brazil's WEG — but the youngest person to build a fortune from nothing is 22, one of three Mercor cofounders who just broke Mark Zuckerberg's 19-year-old age record.
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 the ten youngest, ranked by age, with each one's net worth, source of wealth, and whether the money came from a company they started or a family stake they were handed.
Who Are the Youngest Billionaires in 2026?
The youngest billionaires in 2026 range from age 20 to 27, and split almost evenly on this list between two very different paths: family stakes in century-old European industrial fortunes, and a handful of founders who built billion-dollar companies in the last two to five years. Amelie Voigt Trejes edged out German pharma heir Johannes von Baumbach by about three weeks to take the youngest-overall title, while Mercor's three 22-year-old cofounders now hold the youngest-self-made record Mark Zuckerberg set in 2007.
The Full Table: Age, Net Worth, and Source of Wealth
| # | Name | Age | Net Worth | Source | Status | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amelie Voigt Trejes | 20 | $1.1B | WEG | Inherited | Brazil |
| 2 | Johannes von Baumbach | 21 | $6.5B | Boehringer Ingelheim | Inherited | Germany |
| 3 | Kim Jung-youn | 22 | $1.5B | Nexon / NXC | Inherited | South Korea |
| 4 | Clemente Del Vecchio | 22 | $7.2B | EssilorLuxottica | Inherited | Italy |
| 5 | Surya Midha | 22 | $2.2B | Mercor | Self-made | USA |
| 6 | Brendan Foody | 22 | $2.2B | Mercor | Self-made | USA |
| 7 | Adarsh Hiremath | 22 | $2.2B | Mercor | Self-made | USA |
| 8 | Luca Del Vecchio | 24–25* | $5.9B | EssilorLuxottica | Inherited | Italy |
| 9 | James Dacombe | 25 | ~$1.0B | Olix | Self-made | United Kingdom |
| 10 | Shayne Coplan | 27 | ~$1.0B | Polymarket | Self-made | USA |
*Luca Del Vecchio's exact birth date is not publicly disclosed; trackers cite a 2001 or 2002 birth year. Sources: Forbes, "The World's Youngest Billionaires 2026" (Voigt Trejes, von Baumbach, Kim Jung-youn, Del Vecchio brothers); Fortune and Forbes individual profiles (Mercor cofounders); Forbes (Shayne Coplan); Forbes (James Dacombe). All net-worth figures are single-point estimates from privately held company stakes and can move sharply with the next funding round or family transaction.
Self-Made vs. Inherited: The 35 Billionaires Under 30
Forbes' March 2026 World's Billionaires list found 35 people worth at least $1 billion before their 30th birthday, a record for the ranking, with a combined net worth of $92.4 billion. A record 12 of them are self-made — mostly AI and crypto-adjacent founders like Mercor's trio, Shayne Coplan, and James Dacombe — while the other 23 inherited their stakes, concentrated in European pharmaceutical, eyewear, and industrial family fortunes like Boehringer Ingelheim and EssilorLuxottica.
What the headline misses
"Youngest billionaire" headlines mostly measure a snapshot of a private company's last funding round, 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 by a single investor deal — there's no public market confirming any of them, and all three could reprice sharply at the next round. Most of the inherited fortunes on this list carry the same caveat in reverse: Amelie Voigt Trejes holds no board seat at WEG, and it's unknown whether any of the four von Baumbach siblings has an operating role at Boehringer Ingelheim. Being the youngest billionaire, in other words, usually says more about a cap table or an estate plan than about what the person has actually built or run.
How We Ranked the Youngest Billionaires
Ranking is by age, youngest to oldest, as of August 2026, using each person's latest publicly reported birth year or age from Forbes' World's Youngest Billionaires 2026 report and individual Forbes real-time billionaire profiles, cross-checked against contemporaneous reporting on each fortune's origin — including Fortune's interview with the Mercor founders and Forbes' reporting on Shayne Coplan and James Dacombe. Net worth figures reflect the most recent estimate found for each person as of mid-August 2026; where a figure is a single-round private-market mark rather than a Forbes-verified real-time number, it's noted with a tilde (~). We limited the list to people with a publicly reported age, name, and sourced net worth, and combined Mercor's three cofounders' net worth into one bar in the chart above since their figures are identical. For the full 35-person under-30 list with country and industry filters, see our interactive Forbes under-30 billionaires dashboard.
A 20-year-old university student and three 22-year-old AI founders now hold the two youngest-billionaire records in the world.
Neither record is likely to hold for long — the 2026 list already broke it twice.
Originally published in the Trace Cohen newsletter at Value Add VC.
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