Celebrity Billionaires

By ForbesMarch 6, 2008, 11:45 am PST
WireImageForbes
Last spring's cover of New York Magazine featuring Steve Jobs was largely unremarkable, yet another glossy gusher about Apple and its founder. But beneath the trippy technicolor close-up of the face that launched millions of iPods read the simple, big-bullet headline: iGod.

The canonization may be a touch premature, but Jobs has emerged as the West Coast digerati's biggest superstar, thanks to Apple's enviable lineup of cult gadgets. The former super-geek is now super-cool, boasting the accoutrements more commonly associated with, well, actual superstars like Mick Jagger -- groupies, rabid fans and even haters.

Acolytes line up with sleeping bags and coffee thermoses to sleep outside of San Francisco's Moscone Center the night before Jobs delivers his keynote speech at the Macworld convention. On YouTube, devotees pore over decades-old interview clips, video spoofs, even footage of a woman stalking a car on a California highway because its license plates read "S Jobs." He's spawned his own wannabes, including Forbes' own Dan Lyons, last year revealed to be the anonymous author of the outrageously popular "Fake Steve Jobs" blog.

In an era when business news commands the front page, it was inevitable that the richest men and women would become famous simply for being very rich. Microsoft founder Bill Gates was the richest man in the world for 13 straight years (he has been displaced this year by Warren Buffett). Wealth not only bought him access to the world's most exclusive events -- the World Economic Forum in Davos, the annual Sun Valley tech pow-wow -- but, more surprisingly, access to the world's biggest celebrities. Nerdy Gates has rapped "Big Pimpin'" with Jay-Z and shared Time magazine's "Person of the Year" cover with U2's Bono.

In Pictures: Celebrity Billionaires


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Some billionaires, like Donald Trump, doggedly cultivate celebrity themselves. Thirty years ago, Trump emerged from a cadre of low-key Manhattan real estate scions to become possibly the world's most famous land baron. A relentless self promoter, a young Trump courted the press with brazen publicity stunts, like bringing armed bodyguards to meetings with bankers, briefly toying with a presidential bid and slapping the Trump name on anything that would bear it.

He wooed reporters by personally returning their calls and consistently delivering the kind of outrageous soundbites that beg for front page placement. Three decades later he hasn't changed a lick, minting headlines by marrying again (wife No. 3, Melania, is a former model some 20 years his junior); picking fights with Martha Stewart and Rosie O'Donnell; and suing a New York Times reporter who had the audacity to suggest Trump's net worth was in the millions, rather than billions. Forbes pegs Trump, who today presides over a real estate, entertainment and merchandising empire, as worth $3 billion. Nonetheless, The Donald disputes our figure: "I'm worth $7 billion."

Not surprisingly, the fields of media and entertainment have spawned a handful of celebrity billionaires, including legendary movie director and producer Steven Spielberg, T.V. queen Oprah Winfrey, Star Wars creator George Lucas, and Harry Potter scribe J.K. Rowling. The famously blustery owner of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner III, worth $1.3 billion, debuts on the billionaire rankings this year. In New York he is both revered and reviled, depending, of course, whether the Yanks won or lost the World Series and whom the team has recently traded or fired.

Despite having once declared, "I've got the greatest job in the world," New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, worth $11.5 billion this year, was a regular talking point on the nation's cable news networks in recent months as rumors percolated that he'd enter the presidential race. In late February, he finally laid to rest those rumors by definitively ruling out a bid in an Op-Ed piece for The New York Times. Yet Bloomberg remains a news cycle staple for the time being as he very publicly mulls which candidate to endorse.

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comments 1-10 of 842  | newest | < newer | older > | oldest
  • StarStuddedChic
    u kno ur the only talking and no one really gives two s**ts or a rat's a** about wut u TRYIN TA SAY!!!!
    report abuseposted May 28, 2008, 8:12 pm PDT
  • Carolinaxox
    And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing. Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago. About time someone said the truth, realize what going on in this country. Pat Buchanan , your the man !!!
    report abuseposted May 19, 2008, 3:23 am PDT
  • Carolinaxox
    from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent ? Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself? As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white
    report abuseposted May 19, 2008, 3:19 am PDT
  • Carolinaxox
    how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for "deserving" white kids. Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America ? Is it really white America 's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and t
    report abuseposted May 19, 2008, 3:17 am PDT
  • Carolinaxox
    Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to supp ort soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks. We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude? Barack talks about new "ladders of opportunity" for blacks. Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown , and ask the white kids in C
    report abuseposted May 19, 2008, 3:13 am PDT
  • Carolinaxox
    Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to supp ort soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes
    report abuseposted May 19, 2008, 3:11 am PDT
  • Carolinaxox
    Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to supp ort soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blac
    report abuseposted May 19, 2008, 3:10 am PDT
  • Carolinaxox
    Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
    report abuseposted May 19, 2008, 3:08 am PDT
  • Carolinaxox
    First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American. Second, no people
    report abuseposted May 19, 2008, 2:59 am PDT
  • Carolinaxox
    A Brief for Whitey by Patrick J. Buchanan Posted 03/21/2008 ET Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America . Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to. This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
    report abuseposted May 19, 2008, 2:58 am PDT
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