Top 5 Black Billionaires Featured in 2024 Forbes List

In 2009, Forbes released a list of the richest Black Americans. Oprah Winfrey was at the top as the only billionaire, estimated to be worth $2.7 billion.

The list included 20 successful people from different fields like business, sports, and entertainment. Robert Johnson, who helped start Black Entertainment Television (BET), was worth $550 million.

Basketball stars Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson were also on the list, with fortunes of $525 million and $500 million, respectively. Another famous athlete, Shaquille O’Neal, had a net worth of $130 million.

Others on the Forbes list included Berry Gordy, the 95-year-old founder of Motown Records, with $325 million, comedian Bill Cosby with $450 million, and Ken Chenault, the first and only Black CEO of American Express, who was worth $125 million.

This list showed how these influential Black Americans made and kept their wealth in various industries.

Wemimo Abbey Cofounder and Co-CEO, Esusu

Abbey is cofounder and co-CEO of Esusu, a New York fintech startup that helps renters build their credit histories and scores by reporting rent payments to credit bureaus.

More than 20,000 properties currently offer Esusu’s service and some 1.8 million Americans have used Esusu to record a rent payment. The startup also recently launched a direct-to-consumer product, MyEsusu, through which consumers can build credit and monitor their credit scores.

In early 2022, Esusu raised $130 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation. Before founding Esusu, Abbey, who grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, worked as a mergers and acquisitions consultant at PWC and cofounded a non-profit and a data analytics startup.

Iman Abuzeid Cofounder and CEO, Incredible Health

Born in Saudi Arabia to Sudanese parents, Abuzeid studied to be a doctor at University College London before moving to the United States to become a healthcare consultant.

In 2017, Abuzeid cofounded the healthcare hiring platform Incredible Health, which private investors valued at $1.65 billion in 2022. That propelled Abuzeid onto a small list of Black female founders of companies worth more than $1 billion.

With an estimated net worth of $350 million based on her stake in Incredible Health, she also ranks among the top 100 Self-Made Women in America on Forbes’ 2024 list.

Joshua Aviv CEO, SparkCharge

From his dorm room at Syracuse University, Aviv founded SparkCharge, a mobile electric vehicle charger designed to eliminate “range anxiety” —or the fear EV drivers have about getting stranded because the country isn’t fully prepared to charge electric cars.

SparkCharge raised $59 million from investors since 2017, according to PitchBook. Additionally, in 2020, it received a $1 million investment from billionaire Mark Cuban after appearing on Shark Tank.

Tope Awotona Founder and CEO, Calendly

Awotona is the founder and CEO of the scheduling software startup Calendly, which private investors valued at $3 billion in 2021.

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Awotona moved to Atlanta when he was 15, and studied computer science at the University of Georgia before switching majors to business and management information.

After working as a salesman for several tech firms and launching a few failed startups, Awotona cashed in his 401(k) in 2013 to found Calendly because he was frustrated with the number of emails it required to schedule meetings.

After bootstrapping the company for several years, in 2021 Awotona raised $350 million to further scale Calendly. Today, he is worth an estimated $1.4 billion.

Melissa Bradley Founder and Managing Partner, 1863 Ventures

Bradley is the founder and managing partner of 1863 Ventures, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit business accelerator and venture capital fund focusing on women and people of color.

In 2022, Bradley’s impact landed her on the Forbes 50 Over 50 list. A graduate of Georgetown, she worked as a regulator for Black banks in the Obama Administration.

In 2016, she led a summit to discover 500 Black entrepreneurs in the Washington, D.C. area, which led to the formation of 1863 Ventures.

By funding a new generation of entrepreneurs, and scaling their businesses, Bradley has a goal of unlocking $100 billion in wealth creation in the Black community by 2030.