When Forbes released its 250: America’s Most Successful Living Immigrants, the world’s richest man landed at number two. The man who beat him didn’t found a tech company or crack open a new industry. He arrived in America in 1968 with a thick Austrian accent, an improbable physique, and an even more improbable plan.
The Forbes immigrant list measures impact, transformation, and the influence of one’s story. And by that measure, the Terminator beats the technocrat. Here are the top ten.
Arnold Schwarzenegger (Austria)
Arnold Schwarzenegger came to America in 1968. At the time, he was just a young bodybuilder from Austria with a name most Americans couldn’t even pronounce properly. What followed looks almost unreal now. He became a seven-time Mr Olympia champion, then turned into one of Hollywood’s biggest action stars. After that, he entered politics and served two terms as Governor of California, one of the biggest economies in the world.
On top of all that, he quietly built billionaire-level wealth through real estate. He once said, “There is one label I hold above all else: American.” Arnold Schwarzenegger’s net worth is estimated by Forbes at $1.2 billion
Elon Musk (South Africa)
Elon Musk is the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $839 billion on the 2026 Forbes Billionaires list. He grew up in Pretoria, South Africa, where he taught himself coding on a home computer. As a teenager, he left the country and later moved to the US in 1992 using his mother’s Canadian citizenship.
He became a US citizen in 2002, the same year he started SpaceX. Later, he launched Tesla and changed the electric car industry. SpaceX made reusable rockets normal. xAI entered the AI race. Neuralink started working on connecting brains with computers.
Forbes says he is the only person to have founded or scaled five billion-dollar companies in five different industries.
Sergey Brin (Russia)
Next up is Sergey Brin, who came to America as a child. His family left the Soviet Union after facing persecution for wanting to escape. They arrived in 1979 with very little. At Stanford, he met Larry Page. Together, they created Google, which changed how the world searches for information. Today, his net worth is $237 billion.
Even after stepping away from Google in 2019, he returned later to push its AI development forward.
Jensen Huang (Taiwan)
Jensen Huang moved to the US as a child. His journey was not easy. He ended up in a strict boarding school in Kentucky due to a paperwork mistake, where life was tough and simple.
He worked hard, studied electrical engineering, and later did his master’s at Stanford. In 1993, he co-founded Nvidia. Today, Nvidia is the most valuable company in the world, crossing a $4 trillion valuation because of the AI boom. He once wrote: “The miracle of Nvidia would not be possible without immigration.”
Rupert Murdoch (Australia)
Rupert Murdoch arrived in the US in 1973 after already building media companies in Australia and the UK. In America, he built Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post.
He became a US citizen in 1985 so he could expand his television business. His family fortune is now $22.7 billion. At 95, he remains one of the most powerful media figures in modern history.
Peter Thiel (Germany)
Peter Thiel came to America as a baby and grew up in California. He studied philosophy and law at Stanford, then went on to co-found PayPal. He also made one of Silicon Valley’s most famous early bets by investing $500,000 in Facebook in 2004.
Later, he co-founded Palantir, a major data company used in defence and intelligence work. His net worth is $28.4 billion.
Thomas Peterffy (Hungary)
Thomas Peterffy arrived in the US in 1965 after escaping the aftermath of the failed Hungarian Revolution.
He spoke no English and had almost no money. His father gave him $100 and told him: “Go and make something of yourself.”
He started with small jobs and slowly built his way up. Eventually, he bought a seat on the stock exchange and introduced computers into trading when most people still used paper.
He founded Interactive Brokers in 1993. His net worth is now $67.9 billion, one of the biggest rags-to-riches stories in finance.
Lisa Su (Taiwan)
Lisa Su moved to the US at the age of three.
She became one of the most important leaders in the semiconductor world. In 2014, she took over AMD when the company was struggling, and many believed it was finished. She changed everything, redesigned strategy, rebuilt technology, and positioned AMD for the AI era.
Under her leadership, AMD’s stock rose more than 3,000%. She is now a billionaire and one of the most powerful figures in global tech.
Vlad Tenev (Bulgaria)
Vlad Tenev moved to the US when he was five years old. He later co-founded Robinhood, a trading app built to make investing simple and free. Before Robinhood, stock trading had fees that kept many people out.
The app changed that completely and brought millions of young and first-time investors into the market. At 39, he is the youngest person on this list.
Wolfgang Puck (Austria)
Wolfgang Puck came from Austria and changed American food culture in a subtle yet lasting way. He opened Spago in West Hollywood in the 1980s and introduced a new style of cooking, which came from mixing French technique with Asian flavours and fresh California ideas.
That style became known as modern American cuisine. He later built a global food empire, including restaurants, cookware, frozen meals, and high-profile catering jobs like the Oscars Governors Ball.
He is not a billionaire, but his influence on how America eats is enormous.
