One Romanian on list of 125 foreign-born US billionaires

This year, a record number of 125 foreign-born American citizens are billionaires and live in the United States. Among them is Ion Stoica, the Romanian founder of the startup Databricks.

Stoica, aged 60, is the only Romanian on Forbes’ list of immigrant billionaires living in the United States.

In total, the 125 billionaires come from 41 countries but became wealthy in the US, having over one billion dollars. Ion Stoica’s fortune is estimated by Forbes at USD 2.5 billion.

Three of the 10 richest people in America (and in the world) are immigrants, including the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, 54, who was born in South Africa and came to the US via Canada when he was a student, and now has an estimated net worth of USD 393.1 billion.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin, 51, is the second richest immigrant, with an estimated fortune of USD 139.7 billion. Brin’s family moved to the US from Russia when he was 6 years old to escape the antisemitism they faced in their home country.

Not included in the Forbes list are the 46 non-citizen billionaires living in the United States and the 16 foreign-born American citizens who live outside the country.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Databricks specializes in big data management and artificial intelligence. Among its founders are Romanians Ion Stoica and Matei Zaharia.

Stoica’s wealth jumped from roughly USD 1.2 billion last year to USD 25 billion this year, as investors valued Databricks at USD 62 billion in 2025. At the moment, he is the cofounder and executive chairman of the company.

Before Databricks, Stoica cofounded video streaming startup Conviva. He is also a UC Berkeley computer science professor, and currently lives in Berkeley, California.

(Photo source: Dataversity.net)