The Israeli Billionaires
52 names. $308 billion. The Forbes 2026 list of Israeli billionaires, mapped by sector, generation, and how the wealth was built.
52 names. $308 billion. The Forbes 2026 list of Israeli billionaires, mapped by sector, generation, and how the wealth was built.
A record 52 Israelis appeared on Forbes' 2026 World's Billionaires List with combined wealth of $308 billion — a 24% increase from 2025 and a 50% jump since 2024, according to coverage by Ynet and Calcalist.
The list is not concentrated in any one sector. It spans inherited gaming and shipping fortunes, founder-built tech companies, real estate dynasties, industrial manufacturing legacies, and a post-Soviet immigration wave that began in the 1990s and is still producing new principals. This is the full map. Where Olam holds a canonical profile on a name below, it is linked.
The Top Five
Miriam Adelson ($37.5B) — widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, holds the family's Las Vegas Sands stake plus a controlling interest in Israel Hayom and substantial Israeli philanthropic vehicles. Ranked 56th globally on the 2026 Forbes list, she remains the wealthiest Israeli citizen by a meaningful margin.
Idan Ofer ($34.6B) — chairman of the Quantum Pacific Group, holds shipping, energy, and industrial interests through XT, Eastern Pacific Shipping, ICL, and Pacific International Lines. Ranked 61st globally.
Eyal Ofer ($33.6B) — Idan's brother, runs Zodiac Maritime and Ofer Global, with shipping, real estate (including OG Properties in New York and Monaco), and Royal Caribbean Cruises interests. The two Ofer brothers collectively control one of the largest privately held shipping operations in the world.
Dmitry Bukhman and Igor Bukhman ($13.6B each) — British-Israeli brothers, born in the former Soviet Union. Founded mobile gaming firm Playrix in 2004, now one of the largest mobile games companies globally, with titles including Homescapes, Gardenscapes, and Township.
The Tech Tier
Israeli technology now produces more new billionaires than any other sector. Yuri Milner ($8.7B) — founder of DST Global, early investor in Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Alibaba, JD.com, and Airbnb. Gil Shwed ($4.5B) — co-founder and thirty-year CEO of Check Point Software Technologies, the cybersecurity firm. Arkady Volozh ($3.2B) — founder of Nebius (the post-restructuring successor to Yandex's non-Russian assets), with Russian-Israeli dual citizenship.
Beneath the top tech tier sits a broader cohort: Marius Nacht (Check Point co-founder, now aMoon Fund), Eyal Waldman (Mellanox founder, post-NVIDIA acquisition), Amnon Shashua (Mobileye founder), Avishai Abrahami (Wix), Shlomo Kramer (Check Point, Imperva, Cato Networks), and the founder cohort behind monday.com, eToro, Taboola, ironSource, Lemonade and Lightricks. Assaf Rappaport's $32B Wiz sale to Google in March 2026 — the largest Israeli technology exit ever recorded — will reshape the tech tier of the next list.
Shipping and Industrial
Beyond the Ofer brothers, Israeli industrial and shipping wealth concentrates in a handful of multi-generational families. The Wertheimer family — founded by the late Stef Wertheimer (1926–2025) and now run by the second generation — sold Iscar to Berkshire Hathaway in two transactions totaling approximately $6.05 billion (80% for $4B in 2006, the remaining 20% for $2.05B in 2013), the largest Israeli family-business sale on record, and continues to operate diversified industrial holdings. Sami Sagol built Keter Plastic into one of the largest plastics manufacturers in Europe before selling 80% to BC Partners and PSP Investments in 2016 at a $1.7 billion valuation.
Israeli industrial wealth is older on average than the tech tier, more deeply rooted in family operating businesses, and increasingly oriented toward exits and family-office reorganization rather than new operating expansion.
Real Estate and Hospitality
Yitzhak Tshuva — controls Delek Group, with energy (Tamar and Leviathan), real estate including the historical Plaza Hotel New York position, and financial holdings. Michael Federmann — chairman of Dan Hotels, Israel's oldest hotel group, and the principal shareholder behind Elbit Systems, the publicly traded defense electronics prime. Alfred Akirov built Alrov from a Jerusalem operator into a global luxury-hospitality group.
Israeli real estate billionaire wealth tends to be concentrated in commercial portfolios, hotels, and energy-adjacent property. The post-October 7 cycle drove foreign-buyer mortgage volume substantially higher, lifting valuations across the Tshuva, Federmann and Akirov portfolios alongside the broader Israeli market.
Gaming and Media
Beyond the Bukhman brothers, Mikhael Mirilashvili holds gaming and water-from-air interests through Watergen, with operations across Israel and the former Soviet space; his son Yitzchak Mirilashvili holds the VK co-founding position and Channel 14. Arnon Milchan, the former Israeli intelligence operative turned Hollywood producer (Regency Enterprises), has produced more than 130 films and remains on the Israeli billionaire list. Noam Lanir anchors the AIM-listed Israeli internet and gaming cohort. Media and gaming sit alongside tech as the fastest-growing source of new Israeli billionaire formation.
The Generational Split
The 2026 list reflects three distinct generations. G1 founders — Wertheimer, Federmann, Tshuva, Azrieli, Bino, Rami Levy, the original Ofer generation — built operating businesses across the 1970s–1990s. G2 inheritors and growth principals — the Ofer brothers, the Adelson estate, the Wertheimer second generation — are consolidating and reorganizing the family asset base. G3 founders — the tech tier, the Bukhmans, the gaming cohort — built new wealth post-2000 in industries that did not meaningfully exist in the Israeli economy a generation earlier.
The three generations operate at different scales and through different vehicles, but all increasingly route through family offices and structured holding entities rather than direct operating businesses. Olam maps that layer separately in the Ofer–Wertheimer–Azrieli family-office capital map.
Where the profiles live
Olam's canonical English-language profiles on the names on and adjacent to the Forbes 52, organized by sector:
- Shipping, energy and property: Idan Ofer · Eyal Ofer · Yitzhak Tshuva · Alfred Akirov · David Azrieli · Yehuda Naftali
- Industry: The Wertheimer family · Stef Wertheimer · Sami Sagol
- Cyber and tech: Gil Shwed · Marius Nacht · Shlomo Kramer · Eyal Waldman · Amnon Shashua · Avishai Abrahami · Roy Mann · Eran Zinman · Yoni Assia · Adam Singolda · Yossi Vardi · Assaf Rappaport
- Banking, health and retail: Tzadik Bino · Mori Arkin · Kobi Richter · Rami Levy
- Defense, media and diaspora: Michael Federmann · Arnon Milchan · Mikhael Mirilashvili · Yitzchak Mirilashvili · Aaron Frenkel · Noam Lanir · Patrick Drahi · Nathan Kirsh · John Gandel
The full catalogue sits in The Builders. Names on the Forbes 52 without an Olam profile — Adelson, the Bukhmans, Milner, Volozh — are in the editorial queue.
What It Means
Israeli billionaire wealth has roughly tripled in book size since 2010. The 50% jump since 2024 alone reflects the technology liquidity cycle, the AI investment boom, and Israeli stock market gains across 2024–2025. The composition has shifted toward technology and away from traditional industry — a structural change that will compound across the next decade as the AI cycle continues.
The capital is real. The institutions are named. The data is the receipt.
Part of the Olam Jewish Capital cluster. Hub: Mapping Jewish Capital 2026. Related: The Builders · Israeli Family Offices: The Ofer, Wertheimer & Azrieli Capital Map · The Soviet-Jewish Capital Class · The Diaspora Capital Networks Citation Share Index 2026.
