After reclaiming the title of world’s richest woman from French L'Oréal heiress Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers on last year’s list, Walmart heiress Alice Walton widened her lead on Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires ranking in 2026. She saw her fortune soar by an estimated $33 billion over the past 12 months, to $134 billion, as the retail giant’s stock jumped by 30%.

Before being overtaken by Walton on the 2025 list, Bettencourt-Meyers, the granddaughter of L’Oreal founder Eugène Schueller (d. 1957), had been the world’s richest woman on Forbes’ annual ranking since 2020. She got richer over the past year, too (by an estimated $18.4 billion, and is now worth $100 billion, as shares of her family’s cosmetics conglomerate climbed by 13%)-–but that wasn’t enough to catch Walton.

The only daughter of Walmart........

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