Walton Family Net Worth 2024: How They Made $260 Billion to Become the US’ Richest Family

The Walton family is the richest American family and among the wealthiest families globally. Most of their wealth came from building the retail behemoth Walmart which is not only the biggest brick-and-mortar retail company in the US but also globally.

However, a myriad of other businesses contributed greatly to the Walton family’s net worth.

In 2024, the combined Walton family’s net worth is around $260 billion.

Walmart was founded by brothers Sam Walton and Bud Walton and currently their heirs collectively hold almost half of the shares in the company, which has a market cap of around $430 billion.

The Walton family is quite active in philanthropy as well, through the Walton Family Foundation.

Walton Family Net Worth Breakdown

Since most of the Walton family’s wealth derives from their stake in Walmart, we can form a good estimate of their net worth. They are the third richest family in the world with a combined net worth of $260 billion, beating out many of the richest autocratic royal families.

The wealthiest family in the world is the royal family of Saudi Arabia (~$1.4 trillion), followed by the UAE’s ruling Al Nahyan family, collectively known as the House of Nahyan (~$305 billion).

However, while both the House of Saud and the Al Nahyan families got their wealth due to their firm grasp over countries with massive oil and gas reserves, the Walton family’s wealth is the result of building the Walmart business from scratch into the world’s largest retailer.

Here’s how their net worth breaks down:

5 Fun Facts About the Walton Family

• Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962.
• Walmart was the first retailer to surpass $1 billion in annual revenue.
• The family owns multiple properties, including a 3.5-acre estate in Alpine, New Jersey.
• Alice Walton founded the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
• Rob Walton bought the Denver Broncos for $4.65 billion.

Latest News & Controversies

Walmart Stock Sale Raises Eyebrows: In early 2024, the Walton family sold $1.5 billion worth of Walmart stock, bringing their total sales to over $2.3 billion since late 2023. This significant sale has raised concerns about possible economic or corporate shifts, sparking speculation regarding the family’s future business strategy.

Environmental Scrutiny: The Walton Family Foundation, a key player in environmental philanthropy, is facing criticism over its ambiguous stance on water management projects, particularly those affecting the Colorado River.

Walton Family Net Worth: The Beginnings of Walmart

The early foundation of the Walton family’s wealth creation began in 1962 when Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas.

Seven years later, he officially incorporated the company as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and in 1970 Walmart went public at $16.50 per share. By this point it already had 51 stores across the US.

The company continued to expand nationally in the 1970s and opened its first pharmacy in 1978.

Sam Walton built Walmart as a low-cost discount retailer and was the pioneer of Everyday Low Prices (EDLP).
Walton said:

We are all collaborating; that’s the key. We will reduce living costs for everyone, not just in America, but we’ll show the world how to save and enjoy a better lifestyle, a better life for all. We take pride in our achievements; this is just the beginning.

1980 was yet another milestone year for Walmart as the company’s annual revenue surpassed $1 billion and it reached the feat faster than any other company. That year, the company had 276 stores and employed 21,000 associates.

Read More: All the Walmart Statistics You Need

1983 was another pivotal year for Walmart as it opened the first Sam’s Club in Midwest City, Oklahoma. The company also replaced cash registers with computerized point-of-sale and barcode systems which enabled fast and accurate checkout.

Notably, Walmart’s success has also been a testimony to keeping up with the tech.

While a lot of brick-and-mortar retailers have gone bust amid the onslaught from ecommerce, Walmart has managed to hold its ground and last year it even opened a shop on Roblox to appeal to younger customers.

Walmart took its next major step in 1991 when it expanded globally and opened a Sam’s Club in Mexico City in collaboration with Cifra – a Mexican retail company. However, the next year, Sam Walton passed away at the age of 74.

Walmart continued its international expansion and in 1996 it opened its first store in China. In 1997, the company created yet another milestone when it surpassed $100 billion in annual revenue for the first time. The next year, Walmart entered the UK market with the acquisition of Asda.

However, Walmart hasn’t been as successful globally as it has been in North America, and in 2021 it sold the majority of its stake in Asda. It has also sold business in Argentina to Grupo de Narváez.

Through 2023, the company has consolidated its business even further and sold businesses like men’s apparel brand Bonobos, Outdoor retailer Moosejaw, and plus-sized clothing company Eloquii to focus on its core market and support an ecommerce pivot.

While Walmart has dominated the US retail landscape for years, it has faced tough competition from Amazon as an increasing number of buyers have moved to online shopping.

Walmart has also invested heavily in its ecommerce capabilities but its online sales are much lower than that of Amazon.

However, the company is giving a tough fight to Amazon in India through its subsidiary Flipkart which it acquired for $16 billion in 2016.

Walton Family Net Worth: From Retail to Banking

The Walton family also owns the Arvest Bank Group which is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. It’s a group of banks that has grown through acquisitions. Its most recent acquisition was Bear State Bank in 2018, which gave it access to new communities in southern Missouri, northeast and southwest Arkansas, and southeast Oklahoma.

Currently, Arvest has a portfolio of 14 locally managed banks in more than 200 banking locations with assets over $26 billion. It offers banking services like savings and checking accounts, home loans, vehicle loans, as well as personal loans.

The bank also provides investment products and, it was ranked it among the World’s Best Banks for 2019. It made it to the 2023 Forbes list of America’s Best Large Employers for the second consecutive year.

The Most Prominent Living Members of the Walton Family

When Sam Walton passed away, his wealth was transferred to his wife Helen Walton, and their four children, which helped the family maintain a controlling stake in Walmart.

While some members of the Walton family continue to be involved with Walmart, others have branched out to other fields to pursue their passion.

The following are the most prominent living members of the Walton family, starting with the Walton siblings, all three of whom are among the richest individuals in the world.

Rob Walton

Rob Walton is Sam Walton’s eldest son and is the founder of the Rob Walton Foundation. He joined Walmart in 1969 and has held various roles including senior vice president, corporate secretary, general counsel, and vice chairman – before eventually becoming the chairman in 1992 when Sam Walton passed away. He held the position until 2015 before handing over the baton to his son-in-law Greg Penner.

Rob Walton is an advocate for global sustainability and environmental conservation and is the co-chairman of the Arizona State University Global Institute of Sustainability and the chairman of the executive committee of Conservation International.

He is a member of the Mayo Clinic Arizona Leadership Council along with being the emeritus life trustee of The College of Wooster.

He is a sports enthusiast and bought the Denver Broncos for $4.65 billion as the head of the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group and became the NFL’s wealthiest owner.

Ron Walton has an estimated net worth of $75 billion.

Alice Walton

Alice Walton, who is Sam Walton’s daughter, is among the richest women globally with a personal net worth of around $73 billion. Unlike her brothers, she has never worked closely with Walmart and instead started her career as an equity analyst and money manager for First Commerce Corporation.

She previously headed investment activities at the family’s Arvest Bank.

Currently, she is known for her extensive philanthropic activities through her Alice L. Walton Foundation. She is an arts patron and opened the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas.

According to Alice:

I want to create opportunities that help people and communities achieve their dreams. It is the joy of my life, and a privilege to do so.

Alice Walton has won several accolades for his contributions. These include:

• The Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art Medal
• The John Cotton Dana Medal for Visionary Leadership in Museums
• The Leonore and Walter Annenberg Award for Diplomacy through the Arts
• TIME magazine’s one of the most influential people in the world in 2012
• Induction into the International Women’s Forum Hall of Fame in 2018.

Jim Walton

Jim Walton is the youngest son of Sam Walton and was on Walmart’s board for a decade before he handed over the position to his son Steuart, in June 2016.

While he left the board position at Walmart, he remains the chairman of Arvest Bank Group, which has grown considerably under his leadership. Jim Walton has a personal net worth of around $75 billion.

Jim Walton was the chairman of the newspaper firm Community Publishers Inc. which was founded by Sam Walton after acquiring his local newspaper the Benton County Daily Record.

However, in 2015, the business was sold to Berkshire Hathaway which is led by the legendary value investor Warren Buffett.

Berkshire Hathaway holds significant stakes in several listed and private companies. It also held a stake in Walmart but sold it in 2018 after having been a shareholder for around two decades.

Along with his sister Alice Walton, Jim Walton is known for donating to the cause of education, including charter school development.

Lukas Walton

Lukas Walton is the son of John Walton (making him Sam Walton’s grandson) who unfortunately died in an aircraft crash in 2005. After John Walton passed away, Lukas took over his wealth, and his current personal net worth is estimated at around $26 billion.

Lukas has long been working for environmental causes and attended Colorado College, where he majored in specially made courses focusing on environmentally sustainable business. He later went to Ireland to study energy efficiency and hydrological and geothermal energy. He has traveled across the world including Thailand and Mexico.

According to the Walton Family Foundation, “Lukas’ passion for protecting the environment and pursuing more sustainable solutions began when he was diagnosed with a rare cancer at the age of three.”

He did not respond to chemotherapy but his recovery was aided by a natural diet that his mother Christy moved him to.

He is the founder and CEO of Builders Vision which is an impact platform that helps build a more “humane and healthy planet”. While Lukas is not closely involved with Walmart stores, he is the chairman of the Environmental Committee of the Walton Family Foundation and the Walton Conservation Coalition.

Apart from these four leading figures, Lukas’s mother Christy Walton also owns a share in Walton’s family’s net worth, which she inherited from his husband who split his wealth between her, Lukas, and charities.

Ann Walton Kroenke and Nancy Walton Laurie who are daughters of Sam Walton’s brother Bud Walton each have a stake in Walmart, too.

Walton Family Net Worth: Investments & Assets

Like other wealthy families in the world, the Walton family’s investments are handled by their family office named Walton Enterprise. The company’s LinkedIn page says, “Walton Enterprises is a family-led, private family office supporting the personal, philanthropic and business activity for multiple generations of Sam & Helen Walton’s family.”

While we were not able to find the family office’s current holdings as they are private, in Q3 2022 it trimmed exposure to emerging market equities.

The value of its investments in US stocks was around $3.5 billion and while it sold municipal bonds in the quarter, it added more shares of Snowflake Inc. and Verve Therapeutics Inc.

The family office has mostly invested in ETFs, despite reducing the stake it held around to $1.1 billion in the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF.

According to some estimates, apart from their mammoth stake in Walmart, the Walton family owns assets worth around $40 billion outside of the retail company.

Walton Family Real Estate Investments

The Walton family home is in Bentonville, Arkansas. While we don’t have credible information about the family’s real estate investments, it is estimated to be significant.

There are a range of reports of family members investing in real estate in Denver and Wyoming, tracing where the Waltons live and have holiday homes isn’t possible.

Meanwhile, the biggest source of annual earnings for the family is the dividend that they receive from Walmart. The retail giant pays an annual dividend of over $6 billion of which about half – roughly $3 billion – goes to the Walton family every year given their ownership stake in the company. Now that is passive income.

Walmart’s dividend yield is only about 1.4% which is barely equal to the S&P 500’s dividend yield and while it adds billions of dollars to the Walton family’s wealth every year, retail investors might be able to find stocks with a much higher dividend yield.

Walton Family Philanthropy

Through the Walton Family Foundation, which was founded by Sam Walton and his wifeHelen Walton in 1987, the Walton family has been associated with several philanthropic causes, and various family members are closely involved with the organization.

Among others, it works on improving K-12 education and protecting rivers and oceans. It also supports local communities in the family’s home region of Northwest Arkansas.

One of Helen Walton’s favorite sayings was, “It’s not what you gather in life, but what you scatter in life, that tells the kind of life you have lived.”

Here is a video demonstrating how the family foundation supports entrepreneurs local to their Arkansas base.

What Can We Learn from the Walton Family

There is much to be learned from the Walton family, especially the patriarch Sam Walton who singlehandedly pioneered modern retail.

Sam Walton came from a humble background and made it big in the retail industry, building one of the world’s largest business enterprises.

He admitted that he learned from others and once said, “I probably have traveled and walked into more variety stores than anybody in America. I am just trying to get ideas, any kind of ideas that will help our company. Most of us don’t invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.”

Walton is also a lesson in customer service. Walmart takes great care to treat its millions of customers well.

According to Walton:

If you want the people in the stores to take care of the customers, you have to make sure you’re taking care of the people in the stores. That’s the most important single ingredient of Wal-Mart’s success.

With customers now getting increasingly spoilt for choice, Walton’s words can be a good lesson for those either working or aspiring to get into marketing or customer service.

The Walton family including Sam Walton offer a lesson in humility as despite their massive wealth, the Walton clan has maintained a low profile. They have also been generously contributing to social causes and sharing the family’s hard-earned wealth with others.