“When you live in an oppressed, totalitarian country like I did, and you have no money, there’s no sense of having a future or that life will get better, so you wonder if there’s any hope left,” says billionaire Steven Udvar-Hazy, 79, who immigrated to New York from Hungary as a child, packed boxes in a Manhattan warehouse for 30 cents an hour at age 14, and went on to create the airplane leasing industry.
“When you get out of that situation and come to America, you have a completely different value system than the people that are born here, who are used to their surroundings and all the conveniences, freedoms and material things that are around us,” says Udvar-Hazy. “So you start out from a different point where you appreciate creating value, you appreciate people that are going to be helpful to you, and you’re more prone to set goals and objectives, because you want to get away from that history and past as quickly as possible. The motivation level is just totally different than it is for a person that was born and raised here.”
Udvar-Hazy is one of the record 125 foreign-born American citizens on Forbes’ billionaires list who currently live in the United States, up by more than a third from our last tally of 92 in 2022. These immigrants hail from 43 countries and account for 14% of the country’s nearly 900 three-comma fortunes. These American immigrants are worth a record $1.3 trillion combined and hold 18% of America’s $7.2 trillion in total billionaire wealth.
Three of the 10 richest people in America (and the world) are immigrants, including the world’s wealthiest person: Elon Musk, 54, was born in South Africa and came to the U.S. via Canada as a college student, and is now worth an estimated $393.1 billion. Google cofounder Sergey Brin, 51, is the second richest immigrant, with an estimated $139.7 billion fortune. Brin’s family moved to the U.S. from Russia when he was 6-years-old to escape the anti-Semitism they faced in their home country.
America’s third richest immigrant, Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang, 62, was born in Taiwan and moved to Thailand as a child with his family. When Huang was nine-years-old, his parents sent him and his older brother to the U.S. to escape widespread social unrest in Thailand. Huang, who is worth an estimated $137.9 billion, is one of 11 billionaire immigrants from Taiwan, up from 4 in 2022. That’s enough to tie Taiwan with Israel as the nations with the second most billionaire immigrants on Forbes’ 2025 list, and to give Taiwan bragging rights as the country with the biggest jump since we last looked at billionaire immigrants. Among the new faces from Taiwan are Huang’s cousin and chipmaking rival, AMD CEO Lisa Su. Su, 55, is one of only 17 billionaire immigrants who are women, up from 10 in 2022.
Another new woman in the ranks is Iranian-born Maky Zanaganeh. “Being an immigrant is about seeking the best opportunities and learning to adapt to new environments while holding onto your core values,” says Zanganeh, 54, who first moved to the U.S. to work for a robotic surgery firm in 2002 after running the company’s European operations. She is now the co-CEO of biotech firm Summit Therapeutics, whose stock jumped nearly 200% in the past year, pushing Zanganeh into the billionaire ranks, thanks to the company’s promising lung cancer drug candidate. “In business, it’s the same—you must stay sharp, evolve constantly, and be resilient enough to thrive no matter the challenges. That mindset has shaped my success.”
India added the second most immigrant billionaires to Forbes’ list (5) and overtook Israel as the birthplace of the most billionaire immigrants (12). Newcomers from India include 53-year-old Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, 57-year-old Microsoft chief Satya Nadella and 57-year-old Nikesh Arora, who has run cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks since 2018.
While more than a quarter of America’s three-comma-club inherited their money, 93% of immigrant billionaires are self-made. Nearly two-thirds of them got rich in either the tech sector (where 53 immigrants became billionaires) or in finance (28).
Israel-born venture capitalist Oren Zeev, 60, is among these money masters. “What helped me succeed, I believe, was that thanks to my different background, I was able to think and operate differently than most VCs who went to the same schools, hung out with each other and influenced each other,” says Zeev, who immigrated to the U.S. in 2002 and has bet on companies like audiobook firm Audible, education technology outfit Chegg and Uber’s freight subsidiary. “I believe I found it easier to be contrarian, which of course could be a big positive in venture capital.”
Not surprisingly, many came to America for university and never left, including Musk and 65-year-old cybersecurity mogul Jay Chaudhry, who had never been on a plane before when he flew from his native India to attend grad school at the University of Cincinnati in 1980. The Jacksonville Jaguars’ owner Shahid Khan, 74, arrived in the U.S. at age 16, using most of his family’s savings on a one-way trip to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Within 24 hours, he had already experienced a version of the American dream, landing a job washing dishes making $1.20 an hour, more than “99% of the people” back home. “From that point on, I had a sense of gratitude, humility and empowerment I’d never had,” says Khan, the founder of auto components maker Flex-N-Gate, who has donated some $30 million to his alma mater.
Noubar Afeyan, 62, also came to the U.S to study. He fled the Lebanese civil war for Montreal with his parents in 1975 before earning his Ph.D. in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987 and putting down roots in Massachusetts, where he lives and where he cofounded and chairs Covid-19 vaccine maker Moderna. In June, Afeyan was asked to reflect on his journey and to share his wisdom with new U.S. citizens at a naturalization ceremony hosted by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. His advice for new immigrants, he tells Forbes, also applies to Americans whose ancestors came to the U.S. long ago. That’s because, according to Afeyan, you don’t have to be an immigrant to have an immigrant mindset.
“The immigrant mindset basically says, ‘I’m not owed anything, I’m not entitled to these things by birth, I’ve got to work for it and own making it better,’” says Afeyan. “The immigrant journey is often filled with adversity but the acquired resilience of taking that journey is an advantage if you choose to use it that way. The more expectant and demanding you become, the less immigrant you become and the more that advantage dissipates.”
This immigrant mentality is what has made America great, according to Afeyan. “I’ve seen a lot of different countries and cultures, and there really is no place like the U.S. as an ‘immigrant land,’” he says. “I think we need to do everything we can to protect it.”
Forbes defined immigrant billionaires as foreign-born American citizens currently living in the United States with an estimated net worth of more than $1 billion as of July 7, 2025. Not included are the 46 non-citizen billionaires living in the U.S. (for example: Andreas Halvorsen, Adam Neumann) and the 16 foreign-born U.S. citizens living outside the country (for example: Len Blavatnik).