(KTVX) – Since the early 1980s, Forbes has published an annual list of the wealthiest 400 American citizens. For the first eight years — and also the last 25 years — former President Donald Trump was on that list.
Not this year.
Forbes’ Dan Alexander explained that Trump, down $600 million since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, fell $400 million short of the cutoff to make this year’s list. Trump is worth an estimated $2.5 billion, according to Forbes.
The last time Trump failed to make the list was 1995. As Forbes reports, Trump was on the first list in 1982, before falling off between 1990 and 1995, and rejoining in 1996.
Trump’s wealth has often been a topic of conversation. In a 2018 story, the New York Times challenged Trump’s claims of self-made wealth by documenting how his father, Fred, had given him at least $413 million over the decades, including through tax-avoidance schemes. Mary Trump, the former president’s niece, identified herself in a book published last year as the source of the documents provided to the Times.
SLIDESHOW: The top five on the Forbes 400 for 2021 from first to fifth
After learning that Trump planned to sue her and The New York Times over the story, Mary Trump told NBC News of her uncle: “I think he is a loser, and he is going to throw anything against the wall he can. It’s desperation. The walls are closing in and he is throwing anything against the wall that he thinks will stick. As is always the case with Donald, he’ll try and change the subject.”
Trump, the only president in modern times not to make his tax filings public, paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years. Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes the year he ran for president and in his first year in the White House, according to a 2020 report in The New York Times.
Forbes reports Trump’s net worth of $2.5 billion hasn’t been this low since 2009. That year, Trump’s net worth was estimated to be at $2 billion.
Alexander says Trump can blame himself for falling off the Forbes 400 and estimates that, had he decided to diversify his real estate heavy investments by putting that money in an S&P 500 index fund when he became president, he would have seen a $2 billion bump. Forbes shows Trump’s ranking on the list began falling after he won the presidency.
Now, for the first time in 25 years, Trump is off the list. To see the full Forbes 400, click here.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.