10 Richest Hedge Fund Managers World Today | Celebrity Net Worth 2026

Biography & Early Wealth Journey

This list has changed dramatically since we last ranked the world's richest hedge fund managers in 2021. Jim Simons, who previously occupied the top spot, died in 2024. Ken Griffin's fortune has more than doubled. Israel Englander has gone from roughly $3 billion to more than $25 billion. And British hedge fund manager Michael Platt has quietly built a fortune exceeding $20 billion.

For purposes of this list, we're including investors whose fortunes were primarily created by running hedge funds, even if they have since returned outside investors' money, stepped back from daily operations, or converted their firms into family offices.

Here are the 10 richest hedge fund managers in the world:

• Ken Griffin — $52 billion
• Israel Englander — $26 billion
• David Tepper — $24 billion
• Steve Cohen — $23 billion
• Michael Platt — $21 billion
• Ray Dalio — $16 billion
• Chris Hohn — $12 billion
• John Overdeck — $10 billion
• David Siegel — $10 billion
• Bruce Kovner — $9 billion

#10. Bruce Kovner — $9 Billion

Bruce Kovner built his fortune as the founder of Caxton Associates, one of the most successful global macro hedge funds of its era.

Kovner took an unusual path to Wall Street. Before becoming a legendary trader, he studied at Harvard, worked on political campaigns, and even drove a taxi in New York. He began trading commodities in his early 30s after borrowing money against his credit card. His first major trade reportedly turned a few thousand dollars into tens of thousands, though he also learned an important lesson when a sharp reversal wiped out much of the gain.

In 1983, Kovner founded Caxton Associates. The firm specialized in making large bets based on global economic trends, currencies, interest rates, and commodities. Over nearly three decades, Caxton generated billions of dollars for investors and made Kovner one of Wall Street's wealthiest traders.

Real Estate, Luxury Assets & Personal Investments

Kovner retired from day-to-day hedge fund management in 2011 and later established CAM Capital to manage his personal investments.

#9. David Siegel — $10 Billion

David Siegel is one of the co-founders of Two Sigma Investments, the quantitative hedge fund he launched in 2001 alongside John Overdeck and Mark Picard.

Siegel earned a computer science Ph.D. from MIT and worked at D.E. Shaw and Tudor Investment Corporation before starting Two Sigma. The firm built its reputation by hiring mathematicians, scientists, engineers, and programmers to use enormous datasets and computational models to predict movements in financial markets.

Wealth Trajectory & Future Earnings Projections

Two Sigma has become one of the largest hedge funds in the world. In August 2026, Overdeck testified that the firm now manages approximately $80 billion, considerably more than previously reported.

Siegel and Overdeck each own roughly half of Two Sigma, which is the primary source of their enormous fortunes. Ironically, despite creating billions of dollars of wealth together, the two men have developed a famously hostile relationship. Their feud became so severe that Two Sigma disclosed to investors that the conflict posed a "material risk" to the business.

#8. John Overdeck — $10 Billion

John Overdeck is the other billionaire at the center of Two Sigma.

A mathematical prodigy, Overdeck won a silver medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad as a teenager and later studied mathematics and statistics at Stanford. He joined D.E. Shaw in the 1990s, where he crossed paths with Jeff Bezos.

Overdeck subsequently became an early Amazon employee before returning to finance and co-founding Two Sigma in 2001.

His ownership of roughly half of the $80 billion hedge fund has produced an estimated $10 billion fortune. Unfortunately for Overdeck, exactly how much of that fortune he gets to keep has become the subject of one of the largest divorce battles in American history.

Overdeck's wife, Laura, filed for divorce in 2022 after roughly 20 years of marriage. They did not have a prenup. The divorce went to trial in 2026, with Laura seeking 35% of the value of John's Two Sigma stake. Her attorneys value that stake at approximately $6.2 billion, while John's side puts it at $4.9 billion.

#7. Chris Hohn — $12 Billion

British investor Sir Chris Hohn founded The Children's Investment Fund Management, better known as TCI, in 2003.

TCI runs a concentrated portfolio and is known for taking large positions in major companies and aggressively pushing management teams to increase shareholder value. The strategy has made Hohn extraordinarily wealthy.

It has also produced some spectacular years. TCI generated an estimated $18.9 billion in investment gains in 2025, one of the largest annual dollar profits ever recorded by a hedge fund. The firm's assets grew to roughly $77 billion.

Hohn is also one of the hedge fund industry's most significant philanthropists. He has directed billions of dollars toward charitable causes, particularly children's health and climate-related initiatives.

#6. Ray Dalio — $16 Billion

Ray Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates from his Manhattan apartment in 1975.

Over the next several decades, Bridgewater grew into the largest hedge fund in the world, at one point managing more than $150 billion. Its flagship strategies, including "Pure Alpha" and "All Weather," made Bridgewater a favorite of pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and institutional investors around the globe.

Dalio became almost as well known for Bridgewater's unusual corporate culture as its investment performance. His philosophy of "radical transparency" encouraged employees to openly criticize and evaluate one another, with meetings frequently recorded for review.

Dalio eventually gave up control of Bridgewater and sold his remaining ownership interest. The firm currently manages roughly $100 billion, while Dalio's decades of earnings have left him with an estimated $16 billion fortune.

Ray Dalio (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images)

#5. Michael Platt — $21 Billion

Michael Platt may be the least famous person in the top five, but his investment record has produced one of the largest hedge fund fortunes in history.

Platt co-founded BlueCrest Capital Management in 2000 after spending nearly a decade at JPMorgan. At its peak, BlueCrest managed more than $35 billion for outside investors.

After several difficult years and investor redemptions, Platt made an unusual decision in 2015: he returned outside investors' money and transformed BlueCrest into a vehicle for managing his own capital and that of employees.

The move turned out spectacularly well.

Without the constraints imposed by outside clients, BlueCrest generated extraordinary returns, including gains of approximately 95% in 2020 and 153% in 2022. Platt's fortune has since grown to an estimated $21 billion.

#4. Steve Cohen — $23 Billion

Steve Cohen made his original fortune through SAC Capital Advisors, one of the most successful and aggressive stock-trading hedge funds of the 1990s and 2000s.

SAC eventually became embroiled in an insider-trading investigation. The firm pleaded guilty to securities fraud charges, paid $1.8 billion in penalties, and stopped managing outside money. Cohen was never criminally charged personally.

He subsequently converted the operation into Point72 Asset Management, initially using it to manage his own fortune. Point72 eventually reopened to outside investors and has grown into a roughly $50 billion investment firm.

Cohen has also turned his Wall Street fortune into a sports empire. In 2020, he purchased the New York Mets for approximately $2.4 billion.

Today, Cohen is worth an estimated $23 billion, making him the fourth-richest hedge fund manager in the world.

#3. David Tepper — $25 Billion

David Tepper founded Appaloosa Management in 1993 after working on Goldman Sachs' junk-bond desk.

Tepper developed a reputation for making enormous contrarian bets during periods of financial distress. His defining trade came during the financial crisis, when Appaloosa purchased beaten-down bank stocks and debt while much of Wall Street feared the financial system was collapsing. When the market recovered, the trade generated billions of dollars.

Over time, Tepper began returning outside capital and increasingly transformed Appaloosa into an investment vehicle for his own money. The firm now manages billions of dollars, much of it consisting of Tepper's personal wealth.

He also owns the Carolina Panthers, which he purchased for $2.275 billion in 2018.

Tepper is currently worth around $25 billion, compared with approximately $12 billion when we published our 2021 ranking.

#2. Israel Englander — $27 Billion

Perhaps no hedge fund billionaire has climbed this ranking more dramatically than Israel "Izzy" Englander.

When we published this list in 2021, we estimated Englander's fortune at just $3.4 billion.

Today?

$27 billion.

Englander founded Millennium Management in 1989 with $35 million from friends and family. The firm became the definitive example of the modern multi-manager or "pod shop" hedge fund model. Rather than relying on a handful of star traders, Millennium employs hundreds of investment teams operating independently under tightly controlled risk limits.

The system has proven incredibly effective. Millennium now manages more than $90 billion and is one of the largest hedge funds in the world.

In 2025, Millennium sold a minority interest in its management company in a transaction that valued the business at roughly $14 billion, providing another useful window into the value of Englander's ownership stake.

Today, Englander's fortune is estimated at approximately $26 billion.

#1. Ken Griffin — $55 Billion

Ken Griffin is the richest hedge fund manager in the world, and it isn't particularly close.

Griffin famously began trading from his Harvard dorm room in the late 1980s, installing a satellite dish on the roof so he could receive real-time market data. In 1990, he launched the investment operation that would become Citadel.

Citadel grew into one of the most profitable hedge funds ever created and currently manages around $70 billion. Industry estimates have credited Citadel with generating more net profits for investors since inception than any hedge fund in history.

But Griffin has a second financial machine that separates him from almost everyone else on this list: Citadel Securities.

Citadel Securities is one of the largest electronic market-making companies in the world, processing an enormous share of U.S. stock and options trading. Griffin owns a substantial majority of the private company, which has been valued in the tens of billions of dollars.

The combination of Citadel and Citadel Securities has given Griffin an estimated $55 billion net worth.

When we published our previous ranking in 2021, Griffin was worth around $22 billion.

In other words, he has added more $30 billion to his fortune in five years.

Just Missed The Cut

The cutoff for this year's top 10 is extraordinarily high.

Bill Ackman is currently worth roughly $9 billion, putting him right around the cutoff depending on the latest valuation.

D.E. Shaw founder David Shaw is worth approximately $8.8 billion, while Paul Tudor Jones is worth around $8 billion and Viking Global founder Andreas Halvorsen is also worth roughly $8 billion.

George Soros, once among the world's richest hedge fund managers, has deliberately reduced his personal fortune through philanthropy and is now worth considerably less than he was at his peak. Chase Coleman, whose fortune surged to make him one of the biggest winners in our 2021 ranking, also saw his wealth decline sharply after Tiger Global endured a brutal technology downturn in 2022.

And then there is Jim Simons.

The Renaissance Technologies founder topped our previous list with a fortune exceeding $20 billion. Simons died in May 2024 at age 86. At the time of his death, his fortune was estimated at more than $30 billion. His death officially ended one of the most extraordinary careers in the history of investing.

Five years ago, Jim Simons was #1 and Ken Griffin was #4.

Today, Griffin sits alone at the top with a $52 billion fortune, and the combined wealth of the world's 10 richest hedge fund managers has climbed to roughly $203 billion.

Not bad for charging two and twenty.