This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Forbes' reigning Best State for Business has but one representative among the wealthiest 400 Americans, according to the magazine's latest figures.
Gail Miller, with a net worth of $1.71 billion, ranks 395th in the latest Forbes 400, and 50th among women.
Miller has owned the family's car dealerships (currently numbering 58), movie theaters (17) and the National Basketball Association's Utah Jazz since the death of her husband, Larry H. Miller, in 2009.
The Miller family's car sales operation is the ninth-largest in the country, Forbes reports, and the magazine values the Jazz at $875 million. The Millers purchased the team for a combined $24 million in 1985 and 1986.
Utah's dearth of billionaires comes despite the state having been judged by Forbes to have the best business environment in the U.S. in five of the past six years.
Jon Huntsman Sr. — whose son Paul owns The Salt Lake Tribune — hasn't cracked the 400 since 2007, though he was estimated by Forbes to be worth $4.1 billion in 2000. Huntsman is known to have donated well over $1 billion.
As of March, Miller was Utah's lone representative among Forbes' list of 540 American billionaires. Her net worth dipped slightly from $1.8 billion in 2015, according to the magazine. Representatives for Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was Forbes' richest American for the 23rd straight year, appraised at $81 billion. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos passed Warren Buffett for second place, boosting his worth by $20 billion to $67 billion, while Buffett's value rose $3.5 billion to $65.5 billion.
The net worth of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump fell $800 million to $3.7 billion, Forbes reports, dropping him 35 spots to No. 156. Forbes ascribes its revision to New York real estate prices and new information about Trump's holdings.
According to a Forbes press release: "Forbes has been tracking The Donald's fortune since the debut of The Forbes 400 in 1982. His fortune is real, though by no means approaching the $10 billion that Trump continues to maintain he is worth."
Forbes' 400 have a combined net worth of $2.4 trillion — nearly 3 percent of the combined wealth of all Americans, according to a September report from the Federal Reserve.
Twitter: @matthew_piper —
Ten richest Americans
No. 1 • Microsoft's Bill Gates, $81 billion, up $5 billion
No. 2 • Amazon's Jeff Bezos, $67 billion, up $20 billion
No. 3 • Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett, $65.5 billion, up $3.5 billion
No. 4 • Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, $55.5 billion, up $15.2 billion
No. 5 • Oracle's Larry Ellison, $49.3 billion, up $1.8 billion
No. 6 • Bloomberg LP's Michael Bloomberg, $45 billion, up $6.4 billion
No. 7 • Investor Charles Koch, $42 billion, up $1 billion
No. 7 • Investor David Koch, $42 billion, up $1 billion
No. 9 • Google's Larry Page, $38.5 billion, up $5.2 billion
No. 10 • Google's Sergey Brin, $37.5 billion, up $4.9 billion