Nearly 400 men and women became billionaires last year, according to an annual list of the world’s wealthiest people from Forbes magazine released Tuesday.
The 390 newcomers to the 2026 list span a wide range of industries and backgrounds,
the magazine noted.
“This year’s class of billionaire newbies includes two iconic musicians, one very famous filmmaker, a tennis legend and the younger brother of the world’s richest person,” Forbes said. “These new billionaires hail from 40 countries and territories and together are worth an estimated $755 billion, or $1.9 billion on average.”
Beyoncé is one of the iconic musicians in question, along with Dr. Dre. She is also one of six Texan newcomers on the list, although Forbes counts her as a New Yorker along with her husband Jay-Z, who himself became a billionaire in 2019.
The magazine’s list of billionaires who live in Texas, which it shared with the Houston Chronicle,
includes five newcomers. Their interests run the gamut from nuclear power, data centers, chemicals and biotech to restaurants and pickleball. Here’s who they are.
WEALTH:
18 Houston billionaires – and one icon – make Forbes ranking of world’s wealthiest people in 2026
David Dean Halbert
Biotech executive David Dean Halbert joins the list at No. 1611, with a net worth of $2.5 billion. A graduate of Abilene Christian University, he has spent his career in health care investing, acquiring stakes in and backing
a number of startups. He became a billionaire last year, Forbes explained, after the cancer diagnostics company Caris Life Sciences went public in June 2025. Halbert had helped build the company up from a smaller life sciences company focused on early disease detection, and owned more than 40% of the company at the time of the initial public offering.
Thomas Dundon
The world’s first pickleball billionaire? Not quite. Thomas Dundon, an entrepreneur based in Dallas, made his fortune by selling the subprime auto lender Drive Financial, which he founded in 1997, to the auto finance giant Santander in 2015. He left that transaction with $700 million, Forbes said, and has since built a sporting empire. He has held a stake in the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, is on track to acquire the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, and is developing a pickleball portfolio that includes a majority stake of the United Pickleball Association. Dundon comes onto the Forbes list at No. 1,834 this year, with a net worth of $2.3 billion.
Toby Neugebauer & Family
Toby Neugebauer of Dallas co-founded Fermi America, a nuclear and data center startup, in January 2025 with former Gov. Rick Perry and Perry’s son, Griffin Perry. The company went public just nine months later, turning Neugebauer into a billionaire: in addition to serving as Fermi’s CEO, he and his family own a 29% stake in the company. Fermi is developing a massive nuclear and data center campus near Amarillo, according to a previous report in the Houston Chronicle, with the goal of bringing a nuclear reactor online by 2032. Neugebauer joins the Forbes list at No. 2,052, with a net worth of $2 billion.
