The 40 richest families in America, ranked

Rob, Alice, and Jim Walton are part of America's richest family. Rick T. Wilking/Getty Images The US may not have royals, but it does have influential family empires worth billions. They've accumulated fortunes in various ways, including publishing, cosmetics, retail, and hotels. The richest families in the US include the Waltons, the Kochs, the Hearsts, and the Lauders. Billionaires' wealth and power have grown sharply over the past few years. Although the US doesn't have any royal families , it certainly has family empires with enormous fortunes — and influence. There are the Hearst and Newhouse families, who built publishing powerhouses; Estée Lauder, the founder of the cosmetics giant that generated the Lauder family fortune; and the families who created their wealth with retail and hotel empires, such as the Waltons with Walmart and the Pritzkers with Hyatt Hotels .