John Menard’s Fortunes Declining

Year after year, the wealth of John Menard kept growing. The founder and sole owner of the home improvement chain bearing his name saw his personal net worth grow from $775 million in 1996 to $5.2 billion in 2007, according to Forbes magazine. That grew to $16.6 billion in 2021 and $22.9 billion in 2024. By then he had become the 37th-richest person on the planet and Wisconsin’s all-time wealthiest person, according to Forbes.

But since then his wealth has declined, to $20.5 billion in 2025 and, since then, plummeting to $16.7 billion, according to Forbes’ “Real Time Billionaires List.” Yes, they are updating their figures as you read this because, you know, the rich are getting richer at a rate never before seen.

Which must be galling indeed for Menard. As most members of Earth’s 400 wealthiest billionaires club see their wealth rise ever higher, led by Elon Musk‘s $1.3 trillion, placing him in a trillionaire’s club of one, Menard has, gasp, actually seen his wealth decline. He was passed as the wealthiest Wisconsinite by Diane Hendricks in 2025, today worth $21.7 billion, and has fallen further behind her since. The real-time rankings show a drastic decline in Menard’s once-golden global status: He has dropped from 37th to 174th-richest person on Earth. Sad! as Menard’s old buddy Donald Trump might say.

Menard built his wealth by growing the number of stores, expanding from Wisconsin to the Midwest and beyond, with an estimated 340 stores in 15 states, up from 150 in 2000. Still, that’s well behind the home improvement retail leader Home Depot, with 2,300 stores and 52% of the market, and second-place Lowe’s, with 1,700 stores and 30% of the market, while Menard’s is estimated at 4% to 5% of the market.

That’s a big difference in size, and it’s generally the bigger companies that win the race. Home Depot has seen massive growth in recent years, rising from $112 billion in 2020 to $166 billion today. Menard’s revenue barely grew during this period, according to estimates by Biz Times, and it is not adding new stores at the pace it once did. Meanwhile, Amazon has become the biggest seller of online hardware and tools, with Lowe’s in second. Amazon is taking away a lot of sales.

Menard didn’t just get rich by building the company, but also by paying everyone but him as little as possible. “Employees describe a system that feels built to extract extra labor at no cost,” Slashgear reported.

“In two multi-state class actions, hourly workers alleged they had to attend mandatory meetings and complete ‘In-Home Training’ off the clock — including passing required tests — without pay, violating federal and state wage laws. Those lawsuits also allege Menards made hourly workers clock out for sub-twenty-minute breaks and miscalculated the regular rate used to calculate overtime wages.

“In 2024, the Minnesota Department of Labor found Menards had deducted wages from an employee 103 times for pumping breast milk on the clock, then suspended her for speaking up. The agency issued a consent order requiring Menards to pay back wages and damages, implement policy overhauls, conduct a statewide audit, and pay a $15,000 penalty.”

Menard has been just as tightfisted with managers and executives. “Average Menards manager yearly pay in Wisconsin is approximately $58,973, which is 22% below the national average,” Indeed.com estimated.

The Slashgear story suggests Menard is also tightfisted about safety: “In 2017, a 27-year-old worker at a Minnesota store was killed when his forklift tipped over, trapping him underneath. Four years later, another tragedy struck when a 19-year-old trainee at a different Minnesota location was crushed by a collapsing stack of lumber during a forklift operation. His family’s wrongful death lawsuit claims he was left unsupervised to manage a load far beyond what his forklift could handle. Minnesota OSHA later fined Menards $25,000 after the 2021 case.”

These practices have led to expensive court cases for Menard’s. Two months ago, a jury in Eau Claire County returned a $5.5 million verdict against the company for a workplace injury caused by unsafe forklift practices at Menards’ distribution center, as recounted in a press release by the MacGillis Law Group, which represented the 46-year-old employee injured in the incident.

“The $5.5 million verdict is one of the largest known forklift injury verdicts against Menards in Wisconsin, and is a major victory for workers and workplace safety throughout the country,” the release noted.

Back in November Urban Milwaukee reported in more detail on Menard’s labor practices.

Menard’s has also faced consumer complaints: In December 2025, a court found the company guilty of false advertising and ruled it must make total payouts of $4.2 million to 10 states, in a multistate lawsuit that included Wisconsin and its attorney general, Josh Kaul.

It’s all part of the long-controversial life of a businessman previously captured in the Urban Milwaukee story “The Strange Life of John Menard.”