Richest in Tennessee and Georgia
Among the richest Americans listed on the new Forbes 400 list of billionaires, six live in Tennessee and 10 are in Georgia.
Tennessee's wealthiest:
1. Thomas Frist Jr., the 81-year-old co-founder of Hospital Corporation of America in Nashville (and brother of former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist) , $11.5 billion
2. Martha Ingram, the 84-year-old owner of the distribution and marine firm Ingram Industries, $5.8 billion
3. Fred Smith, the 75-year-old founder and CEO of FedEx in Memphis, $3.8 billion
4. Jimmy Haslam, the 65-year-old CEO of Pilot Flying J in Knoxville (and brother of former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam), $2.9 billion
5. Brad Kelley, the 62-year-old founder of discount cigarette maker Commonwealth Brands who has since become one of America' biggest landowners who lives in Franklin, $2.4 billion
6. Jon Yarbrough, the 62-year-old founder of Video Gaming Technologies, which produced casino games and lives in Franklin, $2.2 billion
Georgia's wealthiest:
1. Jim Kennedy, the 71-year-old chairman of the automotive and media company Cox Enterprises in Atlanta, $9.6 billion
2. Bernard Marcus, the 90-year-old co-founder of Home Depot in Atlanta, $6.4 billion
3. Dan Cathy, the 66-year-old CEO of Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, $5.7 billion
4. Arthur Blank, the 77-year-old co-founder of Home Depot in Atlanta, $5.5 billion
5. John Brown, the 85-year-old retired chairman of medical device maker Striker Corp., $4.7 billion
6. Gary and Randall Rollins, preside over the pest control company Orkin in Atlanta (Gary gave his alma mater, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, $40 million last year - the biggest gift ever given to UTC), $3.7 billion each
7.Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzlus, co-founders of Mailchimp in Atlanta, $2.2 billion each.
8. Ted Turner, the 80-year-old founder an former owner of CNN and Turner Broadcasting Co. in Atlanta who graduated from McCallie School in Chattanooga, $2.1 billion
Source: The Forbes 400, 2019 edition. The richest Americans on the list, in order, are Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ($114 billion), Microsoft Founder Bill Gates ($106 billion) and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet ($80.8 billion)