It’s a great time to be a billionaire
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As near as we can figure, once you're a billionaire, it's pretty much impossible not to be a billionaire. Once they're in the six-comma club, billionaires make money hand over fist pretty much by not doing much.
Take Glen Taylor, the owner of the Star Tribune, Minnesota Lynx, Minnesota Timberwolves, some farms, and a printing company or two.
Just in the time between when Forbes released its annual ranking of billionaires today, and lunch time, Taylor's worth increased by another $100 million, according to Forbes.
That's a pretty sweet gig, even though Taylor is practically the help on the list, coming in at #924th in the world with a worth of about $2.6 billion. Jeff Bezos is #1.
The richest Minnesotan on the list is the same person it's been practically since they started printing money: Whitney McMillan, the scion of the Cargill clan, who is estimated to be worth $6.1 billion, $1.6 billion more than just three years ago. That makes him the world's 289th richest person.
McMillan could set fire to a $100 bill every minute for the next 116 years and he still would have a hard time not having a fortune.
Inexplicably, two Minnesotans have disappeared from the list. Marilyn Carlson Nelson and Barbara Carlson Gage were worth $1.1 billion as recently as 2015. But the children of the man who started a travel company have fallen out of the club.
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