Alice Walton is de enige vrouwelijke erfgename van de Amerikaanse hypermarktketen Walmart. Dat maakt haar een van de rijkste vrouwen ter wereld.

De drie erfgenamen van Walmart – Rob Walton, Jim Walton en Alice Walton – hebben volgens de Bloomberg Billionaires Index een gezamenlijk vermogen van meer dan 250 miljard dollar.

De 74-jarige Alice Walton heeft een geschat fortuin van 84 miljard dollar en staat 19e op de lijst van Bloomberg. Ze is daarmee de op één na rijkste vrouw ter wereld, na L’Oréal-erfgename Françoise Bettencourt Meyers.

De Waltons schermen hun privéleven grotendeels af. Dit is wat we weten over hoe Alice Walton haar fortuin besteedt, van het verzamelen van dure kunst tot het fokken van paarden:

Alice Walton, de op één na rijkste vrouw ter wereld

Alice Walton, de op één na rijkste vrouw ter wereld

  • alice walton walmart

    Alice Walton, the only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, is world's richest woman.

    Walton and L'Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers regularly alternate in the #1 spot; Walton recently passed Bettencourt Meyers.

    Rick T. Wilking/Getty Images

  • walton family walmart

    Unlike her brothers, Rob and Jim, Alice Walton has never taken an active role in running Walmart and has instead become a patron of the arts.

    Walton fell in love with the arts at a young age, according to a New Yorker profile. When she was 10, she bought her first work of art: a reproduction of a Picasso painting for $2, she told the publication.

    After graduating from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, in 1971, Walton briefly entered the family business, working for Walmart as a buyer of children's clothes, she told The New Yorker.

    But her career really began in finance, which led her to founding Llama Company, an investment bank, in 1988.

    She has been married and divorced twice and has no children.

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  • alice walton

    Walton has an immense private art collection, with original works from legendary American artists including Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell, and Georgia O'Keefe.

    "Collecting has been such a joy, and such an important part of my life in terms of seeing art, and loving it," she told The New Yorker.

    Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

  • crystal bridges museum arkansas

    In 2011, she opened a $50 million museum called Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, to house her $500 million private art collection.

    When it opened, it had four times the endowment of the famous Whitney Museum in New York.

    REUTERS/Jacob Slaton

  • Alice Walton

    In 2014, the Walmart heiress dropped $44.4 million on a piece of artwork by Georgia O'Keeffe.

    It was the most expensive sale of a work of art by a female artist in history. Walton later put it on display at her museum in Arkansas.

    D Dipasupil/Getty Images

  • Wal-Mart family Jim Walton, Alice Walton and Rob Walton

    Walton has donated millions to the arts and other causes.

    In January 2016, Walton donated 3.7 million of her own Walmart shares — worth about $225 million at the time — to the family's nonprofit, the Walton Family Foundation, Fortune reported. The next year, the charity gifted $120 million to the University of Arkansas to establish a School of Art.

    She used to sit on the foundation's board of directors alongside four other Waltons.

    Walton also has her own charitable organization, the Alice L. Walton Foundation, which donates to causes including the arts, education, and health, according to its website.

    REUTERS/Rick Wilking

  • Hillary Clinton

    Walton has also put some of her money into politics.

    She has traditionally given to Republican candidates and PACs, though Walton donated $353,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee supporting Clinton and other Democrats, in 2016, according to Forbes.

    The two women met while Clinton was serving as First Lady of Arkansas and was the only woman sitting on Walmart's board.

    Justin Sullivan/Getty

  • Rocking W Ranch

    Walton has been active in the horse breeding scene in Texas, but in 2015 she said she was going to devote more of her time to her Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

    "I've been stretched in too many directions and I want to get focused," Walton said, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2017. "I've got a house in Fort Worth, so I'm moving to town."

    In 2017, she sold her Millsap, Texas ranch for an undisclosed amount. The Rocking W Ranch had an initial asking price of $19.75 million but was later reduced to $16.5 million. The working ranch boasted more than 250 acres of pasture and outbuildings for cattle and horses.

    Courtesy of WilliamsTrew

  • Alice Walton ranch home texas

    She'd also put another Texas ranch, the 4,416-acre Fortune Bend Ranch, on the market around the same time.

    She also cut its listing price, to $22.1 million. The property has a modest three-bedroom home overlooking nearly five miles of river frontage.

    Courtesy of WilliamsTrew

  • alice walton park avenue condo

    Walton also bought a two-floor condo on New York City's Park Avenue for $25 million in 2014.

    The condo, which had been owned by late financier Christopher H. Browne, has more than 52 large windows overlooking Central Park and the city, as well as a media room and a library.

    In 2015, protesters gathered outside Walton's building to demand a $15 minimum wage for Walmart employees. In 2023, the median wage for workers at Walmart, the world's largest private employer, was $27,642.

    Katie Warren and Tanza Loudenback contributed to an earlier version of this story.

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LEES OOK: Dit is de rijkste vrouw ter wereld: Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, de erfgename van L’Oréal met een vermogen van €76 miljard