What would you do with $90 billion dollars? Alice Walton, the only daughter of the late Walmart CEO, is using her money to live in Fort Worth, focus on art, and start a holistic health school.
As of this week, Walton is the richest woman in the world, according to Forbes’ real-time billionaire tracker (which changes daily, based on the stock market).
The 74-year-old woman is an art collector and opened her own museum in 2006, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Walton has also funded several art initiatives in Fort Worth; most recently, her foundation supported an art exhibit by world-renowned artist Jean Shin, at the city’s Amon Carter Museum of Art.
Walton and her family are no strangers to wealth. Her brothers Jim and Rob also are on the list of Forbes’ top 30 billionaires of 2024. Rob Walton, the eldest brother, is the director of Walmart and had a hand in buying the NFL’s Denver Broncos for $4.7 billion — a record for a sports franchise, according to Forbes. Jim, the youngest son, is chairman and CEO of the family’s Arvest Bank.
But Alice Walton has taken a somewhat different path — at least after she was arrested for several DWIs, one in Arkansas in 1998, and another in Texas in 2011. Lately, she has spent her time raising horses and getting inducted into the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame in 2015. Walton soon plans to open the doors to the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine, a new holistic medical school she is funding in Arkansas that’s slated to accept its first class of students in 2025.
In a video interview for the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame induction, Walton said she remembers helping her family at the store in its early days. Walton graduated from Trinity College in San Antonio, with degrees in economics and finance. Early in her career, she joined the Goliathan family business, where she was often the only woman in finance and analysis during business discussions.
“My education didn’t start until I started learning through art,” Walton said. “I want kids and other people to have the chance to learn the way I have through art.”
Read more at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
