The 10 Richest People In Media And Entertainment
The recent digital boom has made many of the rich richer, especially within the media and entertainment industries. Here are the planet’s most influential and wealthy 10 people who owe their fortunes to newspapers, television, gaming, and video outlets, according to Forbes’ World Billionaires 2020 list. The all-boys-club is dominated by North Americans, with only three self-made tech entrepreneurs representing East Asia.
The recent digital boom has made many of the rich richer, especially within the media and entertainment industries. Here are the planet’s most influential and wealthy 10 people who owe their fortunes to newspapers, television, gaming, and video outlets, according to Forbes’ World Billionaires 2020 list. The all-boys-club is dominated by North Americans, with only three self-made tech entrepreneurs representing East Asia. Net worths are as of March 10, 2021.
Michael Bloomberg
NET WORTH: $59 billion
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Bloomberg LP COUNTRY: U.S.
Bloomberg co-founded financial information and media firm Bloomberg LP in 1981. He put in the seed funding for the company and now owns 88% of the business, which has revenues north of $10 billion. Bloomberg got his start on Wall Street in 1966 with an entry-level job at investment bank Salomon Brothers. The former New York City mayor and philanthropist has donated more than $5 billion to campaigns on gun control and public health. The environmentalist was appointed as a special envoy on climate ambition and solutions in February 2021. The 79-year-old tycoon ran for president in November 2019, spending millions to defeat Donald Trump's reelection, but quit the race in March 2020.
David Thomson & family
NET WORTH: $42.1 billion
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Media COUNTRY: Canada
Thomson and his family reign over a media and publishing empire founded by his grandfather Roy Thomson. The family's biggest holding is over 320 million shares of Thomson Reuters, where 63-year-old Thomson serves as chairman. The group posted a 2% year-on-year increase in its 2020 fourth-quarter revenue, compared to the same period a year ago. In 2018, Thomson Reuters announced it was selling a controlling stake in Refinitiv, a financial data provider, to Blackstone for $17 billion. Thomson Reuters and Blackstone's consortium subsequently agreed to sell Refinitiv to London Stock Exchange Group plc (LSEG) in August 2019. In January 2021, the company declared that it had closed the Refinitiv sale to LSEG in an all-share transaction.
Rupert Murdoch & family
NET WORTH: $23.7 billion
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Newspapers, TV network
COUNTRY: U.S.
A native Australian, Murdoch inherited a newspaper at age 22 after his father, a former war correspondent, passed away. Today, the 89-year-old controls a media empire that consists of cable channel Fox News, The Times of London, and The Wall Street Journal. He sold most of Fox's movie studio, FX and National Geographic Networks, and Star India's stake to Disney for $71.3 billion in March 2019. The magnate's net worth grew from $12 billion in 2017 to $19.1 billion in 2019, the year the sale took place. In 2016, the thrice-divorced billionaire married former model and Mick Jagger's ex-wife, Jerry Hall, in London.
Su Hua
NET WORTH: $18 billion
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Video streaming
COUNTRY: China
Hua co-founded Kuaishou as a GIFmaker app in 2011, then transformed it into a video-sharing and livestreaming platform. In January 2015, Kuaishou had 10 million daily active users, and by March 2020, that figure exceeded 300 million. The platform's notable investors include DCM Ventures, Morningside Venture Capital, Sequoia Capital, Temasek Holdings, Tencent, and Baidu. Hua, a native of Hunan, was reportedly born in a village that didn't have electricity until 1998. Before founding Kuaishou, the 39-year-old worked as a programmer at Baidu and Google.
Donald Newhouse
NET WORTH: $17.5 billion
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Media
COUNTRY: U.S.
Newhouse and his late brother, Samuel “Si” inherited the publishing and broadcasting empire Advance Publications, which their father Sam built up from the daily Staten Island Advance. Today, Advance is among the largest shareholders in Charter Communications, Discovery, and social news site Reddit. One of the holding company's media groups, Conde Nast, sold W Magazine, Brides, and Golf Digest in 2019, laying off 100 employees in May 2020. In January 2020, 91-year-old Newhouse's foundation donated $75 million to Syracuse's communications school.
Cheng Yixiao
NET WORTH: $14.3 billion
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Video streaming app
COUNTRY: China
Yixiao co-founded Kuaishou with Su Hua, a short video platform headquartered in Beijing. The conglomerate has over 10,000 employees and offices in China, the U.S., India, and Brazil. In July 2020, the Tencent-backed platform became Formula E's exclusive shortvideo content partner, exclusive live streaming short-video platform, and official promotional partner.
Forrest Li
NET WORTH: $12.3 billion
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Gaming
COUNTRY: Singapore
An ex-Motorola recruiter, Li founded online gaming and e-commerce firm Sea, which also has interests in e-payments and financial services. The 43-year-old Stanford alumna entered the ranks of Singapore's richest after listing Sea on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2017. Backed by Tencent, which now has a 20% stake, Sea runs operations in Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore. Its three verticals across digital entertainment, e-commerce, and digital financial services are Garena, Shopee, and AirPay. When a college tutor couldn't pronounce his Chinese name Xiaodong, Li adopted the name Forrest after watching the movie Forrest Gump.
Charles Ergen
NET WORTH: $9.8 billion
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Satellite TV
COUNTRY: U.S.
Ergen is the co-founder and chairman of satellite TV provider Dish Network and satellite communications firm EchoStar. The 68-year-old first began selling satellite dishes out of the back of a truck in Colorado in 1980. Dish went public in 1996 and serves more than 11 million subscribers today. In 1999, he helped secure the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act, enabling American consumers to access local channels via satellite. He is also the co-founder of the Satellite Broadcasting Communications Association.
David Geffen
NET WORTH: $9.5 billion
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Movies, records labels
COUNTRY: U.S.
Serial entrepreneur Geffen is the founder of record labels Asylum Records, Geffen Records, DGC Records, and popular film studio DreamWorks. The California-based entertainment tycoon began his career in the mailroom of talent agency William Morris, where he rose to become an agent. He owns one of NYC's most expensive apartments, a house in the Hamptons and the Jack L. Warner estate in Beverly Hills. In 2012, he created the David Geffen Medical Scholarship Fund with a $100 million donation. Geffen pledged $150 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2017, the largest gift in the museum's history.
Jim Kennedy
NET WORTH: $9.4 billion
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Media, automotive
COUNTRY: U.S.
Kennedy serves as the chairman of automotive and media company Cox Enterprises, which he owns with his sister and cousins. He also served as CEO from 1988 to 2008; under his leadership, revenues rose from $1.8 billion to $21 billion. Kennedy's grandfather, James M. Cox, founded Cox Enterprises in 1898 when he purchased the Dayton Evening News and he began as a production assistant in the newspaper division in 1972. The 73-year-old inherited his 25% stake in Cox Enterprises from his mother, who died in 2007. The philanthropist actively supports several causes, including education, healthcare, and sustainability projects.