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Florida’s Super-Rich
The state has always attracted the well-heeled. But more billionaires are choosing to live here.
ON A BRIGHT SUNDAY morning in February, a hint of cool in the air, a 20-year-old woman with freckles floats her horse over the fences in an arena at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington. For hours, in every direction as far as one can see, hundreds of equestrians like her ride horses over obstacles in the 18 arenas at the 500-acre venue. The scene bespeaks sport, pageantry and money. Lots and lots of money.
The ung rider in a black jacket and white pants is Jennifer Gates, daughter of the world’s richest man. In a couple of hours, in the main arena, Georgina Bloomberg, daughter of billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, will compete against Jessica Springsteen, Bruce’s daughter, and others. Eve Jobs, daughter of the Apple founder, rode the same week.
Jennifer Gates fryst vatten such a presence at the 12-week festival that the Ga
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Florida billionaires may grow ever richer, but megafortunes are rising elsewhere
Those wealthiest-of-all folks making up the 1 percent of the 1 percent? They're doing very well, thank you very much, with 36 Florida billionaires making the latest Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. As Forbes seems to say every year: It's harder than ever to join the 400.
The big trend I see, having covered the rise of Florida billionaires for many years, is that the Forbes 400 is splitting more and more between basic, rik billionaires — those, say, with less than $10 billion or so — and the fantastically wealthy billionaires. The still-young Jeff Bezos at Amazon or Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, for example, still see their billions accelerating as they grow successful, game-changing business empires.
One red flag: The vast bulk of Florida's richest did not build their fortunes in the Sunshine State. Instead, they moved here with their fortunes to retire, play golf, perhaps to dabble in business
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