The Walton family empire: Inside the lives of the billionaire Walmart heirs

Sam Walton — who created Walmart and Sam’s Club — wasn’t a man of flashy luxury. But his children live a slightly more lavish life now.

AP/April L. Brown

The Walmart heirs’ combined estimated net worth is nearly $440 billion.
All three of Sam Walton’s surviving children have made it well into the $100 billion club.
In public, the Waltons live relatively modest lifestyles despite their wealth.

All three of Walmart founder Sam Walton’s surviving children are solidly in the $100 billion club thanks to their significant holdings of the retail giant’s stock.

Walmart’s share price has surged in 2025, up 19% as of mid-October. The strong performance comes as the retailer reached e-commerce profitability, leaned into automation, and navigated a trade war. The company also expanded its partnership with OpenAI and will soon allow people to shop for Walmart products through ChatGPT.

The combined wealth of the Walmart heirs — which includes founder Sam Walton’s children, Rob, Jim, and Alice, as well as his grandson Lukas — is nearly $440 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of October 16.

Together, they’re significantly ahead of some of the top high-net-worth individuals on the list, such as Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, or Mark Zuckerberg. Elon Musk currently tops the list with $452 billion.

While some of the heirs have worked in the family business, serving on the company board or working to manage the family’s wealth, others have chosen to pursue areas of personal passion.

Ahead of his death, Sam Walton, the original man behind the company that now encompasses both Walmart and Sam’s Club, set his family up for financial success when he divided the ownership.

Last year, the Walton children expanded voting control to their own offspring, giving eight of Sam’s grandchildren a say in the family holdings.

Sam Walton wasn’t a man of flashy luxury, but you can see how his children are living a slightly more lavish life now. Here’s a look at how the Walton family empire spends its money:

Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962.

As he grew his retail empire, Walton, an experienced pilot, would often fly in unannounced to check in on a particular store location.

He married Helen Robson on Valentine’s Day in 1942.

Together, they had four children: Rob, John, Jim, and Alice.

By the time Sam died in 1992, he had set up the company ownership in a way that minimized the estate taxes anyone on the receiving end would have to pay.

Source: Fortune

He set up his ownership of Walmart’s stock in a family partnership.

Each of his children held 20% of Walton Enterprises, while he and Helen each held 10%. Helen inherited Sam’s 10% tax-free when he died.

Samuel Robson “Rob” Walton is the oldest Walton child. He is 80 years old.

Rob Walton’s net worth is $131 billion, according to Bloomberg.

He served as chairman of Walmart from 1992 until 2015 and remained on the board until last year.

Rob Walton Walmart — Rick T. Wilking / Stringer / Getty Images

Rob retired from Walmart’s board at the end of his term in 2024.

Rob made a splash in 2022 by leading an ownership group to buy the Denver Broncos.

The group purchased the NFL team for $4.65 billion in the summer of 2022, a record-breaking sale at the time.

Rob has purchased a house in Paradise Valley, Arizona, near the base of Camelback Mountain.

In the past, protesters have rallied outside his Arizona home to advocate for increased wages and added benefits for Walmart workers.

Besides real estate, Rob has a large collection of vintage cars.

In 2013, he ran his Daytona Coupe, which was worth $15 million at the time, off the track and wrecked it. The car was one of only five ever made.

Sam Walton’s second-oldest child, John Walton, died in a plane crash in 2005.

John, who was 58 years old, was survived by his wife, Christy, and son, Lukas. He left about 17% of his wealth to Christy and gave the rest to charity and Lukas.

After serving in Vietnam as a Green Beret, John returned and held a series of jobs with Walmart.

Some of John’s roles included Walmart company pilot, crop duster, and owner of a few yachting companies, before becoming a Walmart board member.

In 2013, Christy decided to sell their Jackson Hole mansion.

Christy Walton Wal-Mart wyoming mansion — Jackson Hole Real Estate

Christy also sold the family’s ranch for an undisclosed price in 2016 after listing it for $100 million in 2011, according to Curbed and Ranch Marketing Associates.

Christy continues to make headlines as a vocal critic of President Donald Trump.

James “Jim” Walton is the youngest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton.

Jim is 77 years old and worth $133 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Jim was chairman of the board of the family’s Arvest Bank Group until last year.

Arvest Bank, one of Arkansas’ largest banks, has assets totaling more than $27 billion, according to FDIC data.

He also served on the Walmart board, starting in 2005 to fill the vacancy after his brother John died.

Jim Walton’s son, Steuart, took over his father’s seat on the board in 2016.

Now, Jim presides over Walton Enterprises.

The private company deals with the investments and finances of the Walton family only, from modest offices in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Alice is the youngest of founder Sam Walton’s children.

Alice Walton is 76 years old and worth $130 billion, according to Bloomberg. She has been divorced twice and has no children.

Alice has never taken an active role in running the family business.

Alice Walton (Jim out of focus)

REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Instead, she became a patron of the arts, which she fell in love with at a young age.

When she was 10, she bought her first work of art: a reproduction of Picasso’s “Blue Nude.”

Picasso Blue Room — Pictured here is Picasso’s “The Blue Room.”

Evan Vucci/Associated Press

She told The New Yorker she paid about $2 for the piece.

She now has an immense private art collection.

crystal bridges calder — The museum displays both paintings and sculptures, like this one by Alexander Calder (center).

Danny Johnston/Associated Press

Alice’s collection has featured original works from Andy Warhol and Georgia O’Keeffe and is estimated to be worth more than $500 million. In 2011, she opened a museum in Bentonville called Crystal Bridges to house it.

The collection includes a Georgia O’Keeffe painting that Alice spent $44.4 million on in 2014.

The sale represented the highest price for a woman’s piece of art in history, according to The Observer.

Her Millsap, Texas, property, Rocking W Ranch, was sold to the Three Amigos Investment Group of Kermit, Texas, in September 2017 for an undisclosed amount.

The working ranch, which had an initial asking price of $19.75 million, was reduced to $16.5 million. It had over 250 acres of pasture and outbuildings for cattle and horses, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

Her other ranch, a 4,416-acre Texas property, was previously listed at a reduced price of $22 million.

Fortune bend ranch — Courtesy of WilliamsTrew

The comparatively modest, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home overlooks the Brazos River.

Alice also bought a two-floor condo on New York’s Park Ave. for $25 million in 2014.

shutterstock_571830520 — evenfh/Shutterstock

It has more than 52 large windows overlooking Central Park, plus a media room, a winding staircase, and more than 6,000 total square feet of space.

In January 2016, Alice donated 3.7 million of her Walmart shares — worth about $225 million at the time — to the family’s nonprofit, the Walton Family Foundation.

The charity awards millions of dollars in grants to causes that align with the foundation’s values.

Sam and Helen started the foundation in 1987.

Sam and Helen Walton — Walton Family Foundation/YouTube

The Waltons saw the foundation as a way to teach their children how to give back and how to work together.

The foundation’s focus on education was initially led by John.

His brother Jim said John was really interested in giving parents choices regarding their child’s schooling.

Rob spearheaded the foundation’s venture into environmental protection.

One of the first grants the foundation gave helped develop a sustainable fisheries label.

A commitment to the family’s home of Arkansas is another large part of the foundation.

Home Range arkansas — Walton Family Foundation/YouTube

The website says this area of focus is about “advancing our home region of Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta.”

Walmart Inc., which owns Walmart and Sam’s Club, is the largest retailer in the US in terms of revenue.

walmart 1 — Business Insider/Jessica Tyler

The company reported $693 billion in revenue for the past fiscal year, keeping it ahead of Amazon in the top spot in the Fortune 500.

Though the Walton family is earning billions from the company’s success, they remain relatively under the radar.

the walton family walmart — AP/April L. Brown

Much like their patriarch, Sam, the siblings aren’t flashy about their wealth.

In December 2024, Walmart disclosed that Sam’s children had granted voting rights to eight of their own children.

Sam Walton flying in the late 1980s or early 1990s. — Walmart Museum

There are now eight descendants of Sam Walton guiding his fortune and keeping his vision for his legacy.

In 2025, the company deepened its partnership with OpenAI and ChatGPT.

The ChatGPT application icon appears on a smartphone screen. — Illustration by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Walmart and OpenAI launched a new AI skills training program for employees in the summer of 2025, and rolled out access to the enterprise-grade ChatGPT for Sam’s Club workers that September.

Then, in October, it said shoppers would soon be able to make direct Walmart purchases through the ChatGPT app. The news drove the stock — and the Waltons’ wealth — to a record. On October 15, the stock briefly reached a new high of $109.58.

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