Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr. (/fɔːrbz/; born July 18, 1947) is an American publisher, businessman, and politician who is the editor-in-chief of Forbes, a business magazine. He is the son of longtime Forbes publisher Malcolm Forbes and the grandson of that publication's founder B.C. Forbes. He is an adviser at the Forbes School of Business & Technology. Forbes was a candidate in the 1996 and 2000 Republican presidential primaries. He was also appointed chairman of the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB) in 1985, and was reappointed again in 1993.

Forbes was born in Morristown, New Jersey, to Roberta Remsen (née Laidlaw) and Malcolm Forbes. Forbes grew up in Far Hills, New Jersey. He attended the Far Hills Country Day School with his longtime friend and future governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman. He graduated cum laude from Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts, in 1966.

Forbes graduated with an A.B. in history from Princeton University in 1970 after completing a 75-page long senior thesis titled "Contest for the 1892 Democratic Presidential Nomination." While at Princeton, Forbes founded his first magazine, Business Today, with two other students. Business Today is currently the largest student-run magazine in the world. Forbes is a member of Alpha Kappa Psi and Tau Kappa Epsilon. He holds honorary degrees from several universities, including the New York Institute of Technology and Lehigh University.

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed Forbes as head of the Board of International Broadcasting (BIB), which historically managed the operation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush reappointed Forbes to the position. Forbes would continue to serve as the BIB's leader until 1993, following the inauguration of Bill Clinton.

Following his career as the BIB's head, Forbes went on to get involved in various conservative political advocacy groups. From 1993 to 1996, Forbes was the chairman of the Board of Directors of "Empower America", which later merged with the advocacy group FreedomWorks. Through "Empower America", Forbes became associates with prominent conservative politician Jack Kemp, who would go on to endorse Forbes during the 1996 Republican Party presidential primaries. From 1996 to 1999, Forbes also served as honorary chairman of the advocacy group "Americans for Hope, Growth and Opportunity", described as "a grassroots, issues-advocacy organization founded to advance pro-growth, pro-freedom and pro-family issues."

Forbes helped craft Christine Todd Whitman's plan for a 30% cut in New Jersey's income tax over three years, and this plan proved to be a major factor in her victory over incumbent Governor James Florio. Despite Forbes and Whitman being childhood friends, Forbes would later distance himself from Whitman during his bid for the Republican nomination in 2000 owing to Whitman's pro-choice stance on abortion.

Forbes entered the Republican primaries for President of the United States in 1996 and 2000, primarily running on a campaign to establish a flat income tax Forbes believed the American taxation system had become too Byzantine and bureaucratic and was in desperate need of reform and simplification. Forbes also supported the ideas of reintroducing 4.5% mortgages and term limits in 1996; however, he dropped both in 2000, as they were minor planks in his overall platform.^{[citation needed]}

When Forbes ran for president in 1996 and 2000, he sold some of his Forbes, Inc. voting shares to other family members to help finance his run. Forbes did not come close to securing the Republican nomination, despite winning the Arizona and Delaware primaries in 1996 and getting some significant shares of the vote in other primaries. Forbes's "awkward" campaigning style was considered to be a major factor in his defeat. Time Magazine called his stumping a "comedy-club impression of what would happen if some mad scientist decided to construct a dork robot." Jeff Lyon of The Chicago Tribune wrote of Forbes on the campaign trail, "[Forbes] resembles the classic milquetoast, with a prissy smile, gold-rimmed glasses that make his eyes look smaller, and a stiff way of presenting himself when he works a crowd. He has a cornball style and uses preppie slang like 'get real' and 'el zippo' (meaning zero) in speeches." Forbes and his campaign staff were known for travelling between campaign stops via their "big silver bus." For his 2000 presidential campaign, he raised $86,000,000 in campaign contributions, of which $37,000,000 was self-donated.