The booming stock market of the past three years has produced a lot of big winners.
Most hedge funds have lagged behind the AI-fueled stock market surge of the past three years, opting for lower-risk investments. But that hasn’t stopped investor money from clamoring to get access to the top firms—or investment gains and carried interest from adding billions to their billionaire owners’ pockets.
The 10 richest hedge fund managers on this year’s Forbes 400 ranking of the country’s richest people are worth a combined $174 billion, up $20 billion from a year ago. Citadel’s Ken Griffin was the biggest gainer by far, with his fortune swelling by more than $7 billion to an estimated $50.4 billion, widening Griffin’s lead over the rest of the pack. The next three richest hedge fund managers in the U.S.—David Tepper of Appaloosa Management, Steve Cohen of Point72 and Israel Englander of Millennium Management—only added about $3 billion to their fortunes on average over the same span.
Each of these four investors generated double-digit net returns in 2024, outperforming the 6.2% return of the HFRI 500 Fund Weighted Composite Index, which tracks the largest hedge funds that are open to new investments. That hedge fund index’s three-year average annual return through the first half of 2025 is a meager 4.6%, trounced by the S&P 500’s annualized return of 16% over that same period.
Against that lackluster competition, the best of the best can charge higher fees without driving their investors away. Citadel, Millennium, Point72 and others all have implemented or expanded so-called passthrough fee arrangements in recent years that have shifted more operating costs to investors, beyond the standard 2% management fee that has long been a hedge fund staple. The top firms have staffs of several thousand employees who are expensive but have proven worthwhile. The annualized return for Citadel’s flagship Wellington fund from 1990 through 2024 is 19.5%, after fees. Millennium’s net annualized return since inception in 1989, meanwhile, is 14%, with only one down year, in 2008.
Most of these top firms are largely closed to new investors, and habitually return profits to existing limited partners, in order to stay lean enough to sustain their performance. But they’ve spawned plenty of imitators, with Hedge Fund Research reporting that net inflows into hedge funds in the second quarter this year amounted to $25 billion, representing the highest quarterly net asset inflow in 11 years.
Still, the gap between the upstarts and the most technologically advanced multistrategy firms is widening. Citadel, D.E. Shaw and Millennium generated $29.5 billion in net gains in 2024, according to LCH Investments, amounting to more than 10% of the net $289 billion in gains all hedge fund managers produced. The founders of these firms have long been mainstays on The Forbes 400.
Here are the 10 richest hedge fund billionaires in America this year.
Net worths are as of September 1, 2025.
Ken Griffin
Net Worth: $50.4 billion (up $7.4 billion)
Firm: Citadel
Citadel has become the envy of the hedge fund world, managing $68 billion in assets, but an even larger piece of Griffin’s net worth comes from his majority ownership stake in Citadel Securities, a separate market-making firm that booked $9.7 billion in net trading revenue last year. He used some of the profits to add to his collection of homes and toys, spending $45 million on fellow Forbes 400 member Julia Koch’s Park Avenue co-op this February and $18 million on rare copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment signed by Abraham Lincoln. He intends to loan those documents for public display ahead of the United States’ 250th birthday festivities next year.
David Tepper
Net Worth: $23.7 billion (up $2.4 billion)
Firm: Appaloosa Management
Tepper’s personal capital makes up the majority of Appaloosa’s $17 billion in assets under management. The largest position in the fund’s stock portfolio as of the end of June was an $800 million stake in Chinese tech giant Alibaba, and Tepper made a significant investment in the second quarter into UnitedHealth Group, taking advantage of a steep decline in the company’s stock price. His portfolio also includes “Magnificent Seven” stocks Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft and Alphabet.
Steve Cohen
Net Worth: $23 billion (up $1.7 billion)
Firm: Point72
Point72 has rapidly grown in size since it opened to outside capital in 2018 and now manages $40 billion in its multi-strategy funds. The firm generated $5 billion in net gains in 2024, according to LCH Investments, with its main fund returning a reported 19%. Cohen has used some of his earnings to try to make his beloved New York Mets a World Series contender, buying the MLB team for $2.4 billion in 2020 and committing a 15-year, $765 million contract to poach superstar slugger Juan Soto from the crosstown Yankees last winter.
Israel Englander
Ronda Churchill/Bloomberg
Net Worth: $18.9 billion (up $4.7 billion)
Firm: Millennium Management
Millennium manages $78 billion and is reportedly looking to sell a minority stake in its business at a valuation of $14 billion. Selling general partnership stakes to firms like Blue Owl or Petershill Partners has become common for elite private equity firms over the past decade, and several private equity giants are also publicly traded. Investors have generally shied away from owning pieces of hedge funds on the other hand, due to the more volatile nature of the business, but with some funds producing steady returns and locking up assets for longer periods of time, Millennium could be starting a trend.
Ray Dalio
Jemal Countess/TIME/Getty Images
Net Worth: $15.4 billion (up $1.4 billion)
Firm: Bridgewater Associates
Dalio sold off his ownership stake in Bridgewater and resigned from its board this year, half a century after he founded the firm in 1975, though he reportedly remains invested in its funds. Bridgewater’s assets under management have declined to $92 billion, from a high of $168 billion in 2019, during a period marked by middling performance and a prolonged leadership transition. Its flagship Pure Alpha fund rebounded with an 11.3% gain in 2024, its best year since 2018, and gained another 17% in the first half of this year.
Bill Ackman
Net Worth: $9.1 billion (flat)
Firm: Pershing Square
Ackman’s ambitious plans to launch a closed-end fund for U.S. investors with as much as $25 billion in new assets ended in failure when he scrapped its IPO in July 2024, but his existing $20 billion portfolio has continued to perform well. Its net return was 10.2% in 2024, fueled by stocks like Alphabet, Chipotle and Brookfield. Ackman started buying Uber stock earlier this year; the company’s shares were his largest position as of the end of June, worth $2.8 billion. He is also hoping to transform real estate developer Howard Hughes Holdings into a diversified holding company emulating Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
Bruce Kovner
Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
Net Worth: $9 billion (up $400 million)
Firm: Caxton Associates
Kovner left Caxton in 2011, handing the reins to his successor Andrew Law, after founding and running the firm for 28 years. Kovner now manages his portfolio through his family office CAM Capital and has invested in several life sciences and biotech startups in recent years, including Kriya Therapeutics, which develops gene therapies to treat chronic diseases, and Palvella Therapeutics, which is focused on treating genetic skin diseases.
David Shaw
Net Worth: $8.8 billion (up $1 billion)
Firm: D.E. Shaw
Shaw stepped back from day-to-day management of D.E. Shaw in 2001, leaving it in the hands of a seven-person executive committee that today manages $70 billion. But Shaw remains the firm’s principal owner, according to its SEC filings. D.E. Shaw’s flagship Composite and Oculus funds gained 18% and 36% in 2024, respectively, helping the firm produce $11.1 billion in gains, more than any other hedge fund according to LCH Investments.
Paul Tudor Jones
Net Worth: $8.1 billion (flat)
Firm: Tudor Investment Corp.
Tudor Investment Corp., which manages $17 billion in assets, gained a modest 6.5% last year, and its macro-focused founder is cautioning investors about what he views as an overheated stock market and the underlying dangers of artificial intelligence. In an op-ed he wrote for Time in June, Jones cited the rising unemployment rate for recent college graduates and said, “As someone who has spent nearly half a century as a professional risk manager, every alarm bell in my being is ringing.”
(Tie) John Overdeck and David Siegel
Michael Nagle/Bloomberg; Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg
Net Worth: $8 billion each (up $600 million each)
Firm: Two Sigma
Two Sigma’s two founders have a strained relationship that boiled into the open when a 2023 SEC filing disclosed that they were “unable to reach agreement on a number of topics.” But the quant hedge fund is still a powerhouse with $60 billion in assets under management. Overdeck and Siegel stepped back from their co-CEO roles last year to become co-chairmen of the firm, but Overdeck returned to its management committee earlier this year.
