Chase Peterson-Withorn

Chase Peterson-Withorn
Born	Chase Peterson-Withorn
Nationality	American
Occupation	Journalist, reporter, editor
Employer	Forbes
Known for	Forbes World's Billionaires List coverage, wealth reporting, investigative journalism on billionaire finances
Website	https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/

Chase Peterson-Withorn is an American journalist and reporter who serves as a member of the wealth team at Forbes magazine. He is known for his extensive coverage of billionaires, wealth rankings, and the financial lives of the world's richest individuals. Peterson-Withorn has become one of the most prominent bylines associated with the Forbes World's Billionaires List and the Forbes 400, contributing investigative reporting, feature articles, and data-driven analyses of global wealth. His work has included high-profile investigations into the financial claims of celebrities and business figures, including a widely cited 2020 article questioning Kylie Jenner's billionaire status. As a key member of the Forbes wealth reporting team, Peterson-Withorn has played a central role in shaping public understanding of extreme wealth concentration, billionaire philanthropy, and the economic forces that drive the growth and decline of the world's largest fortunes.

Career

Forbes Wealth Team

Chase Peterson-Withorn works as a journalist on the wealth team at Forbes, the American business magazine founded in 1917 that is known globally for its rankings of the world's wealthiest individuals. His reporting focuses on tracking, verifying, and analyzing the net worth of billionaires and other ultra-high-net-worth individuals. This work involves deep financial research, review of public filings, real estate records, corporate valuations, and interviews with sources close to the subjects of Forbes rankings.

Peterson-Withorn has served as one of the principal reporters and writers behind the annual Forbes World's Billionaires List, one of the publication's flagship editorial products. The list, which has been published annually since 1987, ranks the world's wealthiest people by estimated net worth. In March 2026, Peterson-Withorn co-authored coverage of the 40th annual edition of the list, reporting that more than 3,400 individuals had qualified as billionaires with a combined worth exceeding $20 trillion. He also authored an accompanying article highlighting the top 200 billionaires on the list, noting that the explosion of artificial intelligence, strong financial markets, and supportive fiscal policies had contributed to unprecedented wealth accumulation.

His reporting on the billionaires list has encompassed not only the rankings themselves but also broader analytical narratives about global wealth trends. In January 2026, Forbes Australia published an article drawing on reporting by the Forbes wealth team, including Peterson-Withorn's work, examining why 2025 had been described as the best year in history for billionaires. The piece noted developments such as the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange investing $2 billion into a prediction market startup, illustrating the expanding reach of billionaire capital into emerging sectors.

Peterson-Withorn has also been involved in coverage of the Forbes 400, the annual ranking of the wealthiest Americans. In September 2025, Forbes hosted a members-only event offering an inside look at the compilation of that year's Forbes 400 list, featuring three Forbes reporters taking participants behind the scenes of the ranking process.

Investigative Reporting on Kylie Jenner

One of Peterson-Withorn's most widely discussed articles was published in May 2020, when he co-authored a detailed investigation for Forbes examining the financial claims made by Kylie Jenner and her representatives regarding the value of her cosmetics company, Kylie Cosmetics, and her personal net worth. The article, titled "Inside Kylie Jenner's Web of Lies—And Why She's No Longer a Billionaire," presented evidence that Jenner's team had provided misleading information, including what Forbes described as likely forged tax returns, to inflate the apparent size and profitability of her business.

The investigation drew on public filings related to the sale of a majority stake in Kylie Cosmetics to Coty Inc., which revealed discrepancies between the financial figures previously provided to Forbes by Jenner's team and the actual financial performance of the company. Forbes concluded that Jenner's net worth was significantly lower than the figure that had placed her on its billionaires list, and the magazine subsequently removed her from the list.

The article generated substantial media attention and public discussion, becoming one of the most-read pieces of wealth journalism published that year. It also highlighted the challenges faced by publications like Forbes in verifying the financial claims of privately held companies and celebrity-branded businesses, where audited financial statements are not always publicly available.

Reporting on Billionaire Real Estate and Tax Migration

Peterson-Withorn has reported extensively on the intersection of billionaire wealth, real estate, and tax policy. In January 2026, he published an exclusive report for Forbes about a Los Angeles billionaire who relocated to Nevada following California's consideration of a wealth tax. The article revealed that the buyer behind a record $21 million penthouse purchase in the Las Vegas area was a lifelong California resident who cited the state's tax environment as a motivating factor for the move.

This type of reporting exemplifies Peterson-Withorn's focus on the practical implications of wealth policy, documenting how proposed tax legislation at the state and federal levels influences the geographic and financial decisions of ultra-wealthy individuals. Nevada, which has no state income tax or estate tax, has long attracted wealthy residents from neighboring California, and Peterson-Withorn's reporting provided concrete evidence of this trend through firsthand sourcing and real estate records analysis.

Coverage of Business and Technology

Peterson-Withorn's reporting has also extended to the intersection of billionaire wealth, technology, and political influence. In September 2025, he contributed to a Forbes wealth team investigation examining the network of billionaire investors, business partners, and political supporters involved in the effort to acquire TikTok's U.S. operations. The article detailed how the exact lineup of investors remained undisclosed but traced the web of relationships among the key players, some of which extended back nearly half a century.

This reporting demonstrated Peterson-Withorn's ability to navigate complex corporate structures and political networks, connecting financial data with broader narratives about power, influence, and the role of wealth in shaping technology policy and ownership.

Feature Writing and Cultural Reporting

In addition to his core wealth reporting, Peterson-Withorn has written feature articles for Forbes on topics adjacent to wealth and collecting. In February 2026, he authored a piece examining notable American inventions and artifacts that had sold for significant sums at auction, exploring the market for historically significant objects and the collectors who pursue them.

Such articles illustrate the breadth of Peterson-Withorn's coverage, which extends beyond pure financial analysis to encompass the cultural dimensions of wealth, including how the ultra-rich allocate resources toward art, collectibles, and objects of historical significance.

Recognition

Peterson-Withorn's work has been cited across major media outlets and has contributed to Forbes' reputation as the leading publication for wealth tracking and billionaire analysis. His 2020 investigation into Kylie Jenner's financial claims was among the most widely discussed examples of investigative business journalism that year, prompting debate about due diligence in celebrity wealth reporting and the reliability of financial claims made by private companies.

His byline on the annual Forbes World's Billionaires List and the Forbes 400 places him among a small group of journalists who directly shape the public narrative around global wealth concentration. The 2026 edition of the billionaires list, which he helped author, documented over 3,400 billionaires worth a collective $20 trillion, reflecting the continued growth in global wealth and the increasing public interest in understanding who holds it and how it is accumulated.

Peterson-Withorn's reporting has also been referenced in broader discussions about wealth inequality. An April 2025 article in the Chelsea News cited the scale of American billionaire wealth — $6.8 trillion combined, equivalent to the third or fourth wealthiest nation — drawing on the type of data and reporting that Peterson-Withorn and his colleagues at Forbes regularly compile.

Legacy

As a journalist specializing in wealth reporting, Chase Peterson-Withorn has contributed to a body of work that shapes how the public, policymakers, and the media understand economic inequality and the accumulation of extreme wealth. His investigative approach — grounded in financial analysis, document review, and original sourcing — has reinforced the editorial standards of Forbes' wealth team at a time when the verification of financial claims by private individuals and companies has become increasingly complex.

The Kylie Jenner investigation, in particular, raised important questions about the responsibilities of financial media in an era of celebrity-branded businesses and social media-driven valuations. By documenting discrepancies between publicly claimed and actual financial figures, Peterson-Withorn's reporting underscored the importance of independent verification in wealth journalism and prompted other publications to reconsider how they report on the net worth of public figures.

His ongoing coverage of the Forbes billionaires lists provides a longitudinal record of global wealth trends, documenting the rise of technology-driven fortunes, the impact of artificial intelligence on wealth creation, and the geographic migration of the ultra-wealthy in response to tax policy changes. This body of work serves as both journalism and a form of economic history, tracking the shifting composition of the world's wealthiest individuals over time.

Peterson-Withorn's reporting on the TikTok acquisition and other major business deals also reflects a broader evolution in wealth journalism, which increasingly examines not just how much the wealthy are worth but how they deploy their capital to influence technology, politics, and culture.