How Walmart heiress Alice Walton, the world's richest woman, spends her $135 billion fortune

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

Walton overtook L'Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers as the world's richest woman on Forbes' 2025 list, retaining the title this year.

Unlike her brothers, Rob and Jim, Alice Walton has not played a major 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 around 10 years old, she bought her first work of art: a reproduction of a Picasso painting for about $2, she told the publication.

After graduating from Trinity University in San Antonio 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.

Walton has an immense private art collection that includes original works by legendary American artists.

"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 in 2011.

In 2011, she opened the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, with her private art collection.

Walmart is also headquartered in Bentonville. Before the museum opened, it had four times the endowment of the famous Whitney Museum in New York, according to the New Yorker profile.

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

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

Crystal Bridges underwent a major expansion this year.

The expansiongrew Crystal Bridges' footprint by 50%, according to a press release.

Walton has committed billions of dollars to philanthropy.

Walton has contributed more than $6 billion to five family charitable foundations, which had distributed an estimated $2 billion of her funds through 2024, Forbes reported.

In 2017, the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation gifted $120 million to the University of Arkansas to establish a School of Art.

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.

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, during the 2016 election cycle, according to Forbes.

During the 2026 election cycle, she contributed to Republican senators including Bill Cassidy and Tom Cotton, as well as Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by FundVoter.

And she 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 52 large windows overlooking Central Park and the city, as well as a media room and a library.

Walton was active in the horse-breeding scene in Texas, but in 2015, she said she would devote more of her time to Crystal Bridges.

"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 ranch in Millsap, Texas, 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.

Walton also listed her 4,416-acre Fortune Bend Ranch in Texas in 2015 for $28.7 million.

She also cut its listing price to $22.1 million.

In 2021, the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine was founded.

The school welcomed 48 students in 2025 and welcomed its second class of 48 this year. Tuition was waived for these students and will continue to be for the next three cohorts.

It is for students "devoted to transforming the health of medically underserved and rural communities in Arkansas, its surrounding states, and beyond," the school website says.

The Alice L. Walton Foundation and Mercy are building a healthcare campus in Bentonville.

Its first building, a 709,000-square-foot specialty care center, is expected to open in 2029.

Along with other Walton family members, Walton is helping to fund a STEM-focused university in Bentonville.

It's scheduled to have its first class of students in 2029. Like the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine, tuition is planned to be waived for the first cohorts.

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

Editor's Note: This story was originally published in April 2020 and most recently updated in November 2026.