Storage and Stallions…Meet Kentucky’s Wealthiest Woman and Only Billionaire

There was a time, decades ago, when I couldn't have told you the names of any billionaires off the top of my head. It could be because we didn't used to have that many. Inflation will do that.

AMERICA'S BILLIONAIRES

Let me show you what I mean. I accessed an inflation calculator (they are invaluable) and entered $1billion and set the year to 2025. Then I set the other year to 1985. One billion dollars today is the equivalent of $3,327,089.83 in 1985. See? Well, back then, being a millionaire was impressive enough. We weren't thinking in terms of billions.

Today, on the other hand, billionaires are high profile. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg. There are several others whose names you know, but you get where I'm coming from. By the end of 2024, there were 813 billionaires in the United States. That's a lot of people who aren't celebrities like the ones I mentioned.

RICHEST PERSON IN KENTUCKY

But I doubt that matters to someone like Kentucky's only billionaire, Tamara Gustavson, or any of the other billionaires, for that matter, whose names do not roll off our tongues. The Forbes "Real Time Net Worth" function puts Gustavson's fortune at $8.4 billion, and it's come to her by way of self-storage behemoth Public Storage of which she is the largest shareholder. Additionally, Gustavson and her husband Eric own Lexington's Spendthrift Farm which as been responsible for 10 Kentucky Derby winners.

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TAMARA GUSTAVSON MAKES THE FORBES 400

Last year, she was joined by three others from neighboring Indiana on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans.

Gustavson is also a board member for American Homes 4 Rent, as well as a director for the William Lawrence & Blanche Hughes Foundation, a 501(c)3 that researches childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia.

As of today, Tamara Gustavson is the 367th richest person in the world.