NEW YORK -- The soaring stock market helped land 60 new names on this year's list of the richest Americans, turning 35 of them into billionaires, according to Forbes magazine's latest ranking of the nation's 400 wealthiest people.
Four of those 400 are Utahns, led by Salt Lake City's Jon M. Huntsman, who runs the world's largest privately held chemical company and ranked 53rd with a net worth of $3.9 billion. James L. Sorenson, Salt Lake medical devices magnate, ranked 79th with $2.8 billion. Raymond J. Noorda, retired chairman of Novell Inc. in Provo, ranked 223rd with $1.1 billion; and Robert Earl Holding's hotel and oil holdings helped him land in the 284th spot with a net worth of $900 million.Of the rookies on the overall list, 19 made fortunes from Internet-related businesses, including Amazon.com chairman Jeffrey Bezos, ranked 18th with a net worth of $7.8 billion. Jay Walker, founder of the online merchant Priceline.com, was ranked 43rd with $4.1 billion.
Wall Street also helped some on the list become billionaires almost overnight. No. 68 Gary Winnick joined the billionaires club just 18 months after founding Global Crossing, which is building a global fiber optic telecommunications network.
The 400 richest Americans for the first time have collectively amassed $1 trillion, a figure greater than the gross domestic product of China.
The total number of billionaires on the annual list increased by 79 to 268, making 1999 the first time billionaires made up more than half the list, Forbes said in its issue dated Oct. 11.
The minimum net worth needed to qualify for the Forbes 400 rose to $625 million from $500 million in 1998.
Bill Gates retained his place as the richest of them all. The Microsoft Corp. chairman saw his net worth climb to $85 billion, up from $59 billion a year ago.
Gates was twice as wealthy as the second richest American, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who has a net worth of $40 billion. Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., ranked third with $31 billion.
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's president, was No. 4 with $23 billion, and No. 5 was Dell Computer chief executive officer Michael Dell, with $20 billion.
A college degree was not required to make the list -- at least 63 members never graduated from college and their net-worth average was $4.3 billion.
Forbes said the 400 had an average net worth of $2.6 billion, which would give them a total worth around $1.04 trillion, up from $738 billion a year ago.