Forbes October 2021

For 104 years, Forbes has brought its readers along, often first, into the boardrooms of Edison and Ford, Jobs and Gates. While, as a policy, we don’t cover ourselves, it’s appropriate to confirm that Forbes recently announced plans to go public through a SPAC, Magnum Opus Acquisition—since the ultimate beneficiary, if we do our jobs right, is you. The deal should leave Forbes with up to $145 million on its balance sheet. The mandate: investing in great journalism—content and products that make you better informed, often entertained and maybe even richer. We’ll be empowered to create more of it, in more ways, on more platforms. Internally, we’re going to grow—and focus. Our reporters will report. Our number crunchers will crunch. Our data analysts will analyze. And so on. Breadth has always allowed…

There’s a pernicious procedure called civil asset forfeiture that Congress should have banned years ago. Using it, the government can seize your house, your car and your cash, even when you’ve done nothing wrong—i.e., you haven’t been charged with, much less convicted of, a crime. And this happens more often than you think. Since Congress hasn’t taken care of this, the Supreme Court should unambiguously rule that the process is utterly unconstitutional. Officers can just declare that they suspect the property in question was used in the commission of a crime or was obtained illegally, and they don’t have to prove their suspicions before seizing it. That’s right—no charges have to be filed. Then, incredibly, you must prove your property is clean. Recovering the assets seized from you is a laborious and expensive…

• The Lounge at Le Bernardin 155 West 51st St. (Tel.: 212-554-1515) An elegant, very comfortable and much less formal alternative to the main dining room. There’s an array of caviar offerings, as well as a luxurious smoked salmon croque monsieur with golden Osetra. The à la carte menu can change, but restaurant classics are usually on offer: glistening oysters, including East and West Coast varieties; the LB lobster roll, teeming with generous pieces of lobster on a black truffle bun; the yellowfin tuna pounded into delicate layers with a drizzle of olive oil; and the LB signature salmon rillette. Also on the menu are beautiful works of art created with salmon, scallops or hamachi. But the topper to this meal is the Egg—a sinful concoction of chocolate and caramel served in…

No group has benefited from the white-hot market more than the 20 richest Americans. Eight of them are now worth $100 billion or more, up from just two a year ago and none in 2017. One boasts a fortune of more than $200 billion. The combined net worth of this elite echelon is up an unprecedented $500 billion over the last year, to $1.8 trillion—a figure greater than the GDP of Canada. Admission to the top 20 now requires a fortune of $36 billion, the most ever, to qualify. 1. JEFF BEZOS $201 billion SELF-MADE SCORE: SOURCE: Amazon AGE: 57 RESIDENCE: Seattle, WA PHILANTHROPY SCORE: Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon in July—and promptly launched himself into space, spending ten minutes outside the atmosphere aboard his company Blue Origin’s first manned spaceflight. His net worth also reached…

With a sky-high cutoff, even famous faces came up short: Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Uber’s Travis Kalanick and Revlon’s Ron Perelman aren’t worth enough to make this year’s Forbes 400. Of the 122 Americans who became billionaires in the past year, only 27 made the list—but many more are on their way up. One newly minted billionaire worth watching is 53-year-old prolific investor and entrepreneur Jenny Just. Over the past 24 years, she has started or bought 15 companies in industries ranging from insurance (National Flood Services) and video games (esports team Evil Geniuses) to options trading (Peak6 Capital Management). The biggest deal of her career will happen later this year, though. Her star investment, Apex Fintech Solutions—which handles back-office operations for mobile trading apps, robo-advisors and more—is slated to go…

Donald Trump $2.5 billion Most officials divest when they take office, but Trump refused in 2017, clinging to his then–$3.5 billion fortune. Bad move. If he’d shifted his money into the S&P 500, he’d be worth at least $4.7 billion, enough to rank No. 229. Instead, he’s off the list for the first time in 25 years. Jim Koch $2 billion Boston Beer Company, which he cofounded and chairs, bet big on its five-year-old hard seltzer line, Truly, even hiring pop star Dua Lipa in May to promote it. Those eff orts fell flat, and shares have tumbled more than 50% since April on news of its disappointing sales. Oprah Winfrey $2.6 billion Oprah drops off for the first time since 1995 despite her fortune holding steady, as others passed her by. She’s still a powerhouse: Her March…