Indian immigrants top Forbes 2025 list of richest foreign-born billionaires

Business Standard

10-07-2025

Indian immigrants are driving wealth, innovation, and influence across the United States, says the latest Forbes 2025 list of America's Richest Immigrants. The report confirms that Indian-origin entrepreneurs and professionals are not just thriving in the US, but significantly enriching its economy.
According to Forbes, India has now overtaken Israel in terms of the number of foreign-born billionaires in the United States, leading with the highest number of billionaires this year. India stands at the top with 12 billionaires, followed by Israel and Taiwan with 11 individuals making the list in 2025.
There are now 125 foreign-born American billionaires living in the United States, up from 92 in 2022. These immigrants come from 43 different countries and make up 14 per cent of all billionaires in the US. Together, they are worth a record $1.3 trillion—18 per cent of America's $7.2 trillion in total billionaire wealth.
Who are the Indian-origin billionaires on the 2025 list?
New Indian-origin entrants to the Forbes billionaire list include Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet; Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft; and Nikesh Arora, who has led cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks since 2018.
The richest Indian-American on the list is Jay Chaudhry, the founder of cybersecurity giant Zscaler, with a net worth of $17.9 billion. Born in a small village in Himachal Pradesh, Chaudhry moved to the US in the 1980s for education and went on to establish himself as a prominent name in cybersecurity.
Full list of Indian-origin billionaires on Forbes 2025
Jay Chaudhry – $17.9B – Security software
Vinod Khosla – $9.2B – Sun Microsystems, venture capital
Rakesh Gangwal – $6.6B – Airline
Romesh T. Wadhwani – $5.0B – Software
Rajiv Jain – $4.8B – Finance
Kavitark Ram Shriram – $3.0B – Google, venture capital
Raj Sardana – $2.0B – Technology services
David Paul – $1.5B – Medical devices
Nikesh Arora – $1.4B – Cybersecurity, SoftBank, Google
Sundar Pichai – $1.1B – Alphabet
Satya Nadella – $1.1B – Microsoft
Neerja Sethi – $1.0B – IT consulting
How do immigrants from other countries compare?
Three of the ten richest people in the US are immigrants.
Topping the list is Elon Musk, born in South Africa, who came to the US via Canada as a college student. He is now the world's richest person, with an estimated net worth of $393.1 billion.
The second-richest immigrant is Sergey Brin, cofounder of Google, worth $139.7 billion. His family moved to the US from Russia when he was six, fleeing anti-Semitism.
At number three is Jensen Huang, cofounder and CEO of Nvidia. Born in Taiwan, he spent part of his childhood in Thailand before moving to the US at age nine. Huang is worth $137.9 billion and is one of 11 billionaire immigrants from Taiwan, raising its count from just four in 2022. This puts Taiwan at par with Israel in second place.
Technology and finance dominate immigrant wealth sectors
The latest Forbes report highlights that while over 25 per cent of American billionaires inherited their wealth, a massive 93 per cent of immigrant billionaires are self-made. Nearly two-thirds of them made their fortunes in just two industries: technology (53 immigrants) and finance (28 immigrants).