Public Companies, Private Wealth

Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Oprah, Mark Zuckerberg, Tyler Perry, Warren Buffet, etc. We’re all enamored with the billionaires that live in the public eye, but what about the lesser known individuals and families? Who are they? And how did they rise to wealth? Here are some stories of hidden billionaires that you’ve probably never heard of.

Philip Anschutz

Philip Anschutz, known as America’s most reclusive billionaire, owns Anscutz Entertainment Group (AEG), which is the parent company for something you’ve definitely heard of - Coachella. But this was well after he gained his fortune. Anschutz didn't necessarily have humble beginnings. He had deep pockets long before getting into the entertainment industry.

Anschutz started accumulating his wealth in 1961 after buying his father’s oil drilling company in Wyoming, Circle A Drilling. He used the returns he gained from the business to make investments into stocks, real estate, railroads, and sports and entertainment. In 1982, he made what was at the time the largest oil field discovery in US history, which contributed to him becoming one of the 100 largest land owners in the country. He eventually sold a stake in his oil fields to Mobil Oil for $500M and was Colorado’s only billionaire for several years.

I could spend all day doing deep dives into what Anschutz has minority or majority ownership in, but here’s a list of some of the most notable:

Sports

• Major League Soccer (yes, the entire league, as well many teams)

• Los Angeles Lakers

• Los Angeles Kings

• Staples Center (now Crypto.com arena unfortunately)

Entertainment

• Coachella

• The Chronicles of Narnia

• Ray

Media

• The Washington Examiner

• The San Francisco Examiner

• The Gazette

Railroads and Oil

• Rio Grande Industries

• Union Pacific Corporation

• Southern Pacific Railroad

Anschutz was described as the “Wizard of Oz” by Jack Kyser of the LA Times in 2006. "He is the man behind the curtain pulling the levers. Nobody sees him, yet he has a huge impact on Los Angeles."

The Cargill-MacMillan Family

Try and find something in your refrigerator or pantry that this family hasn't had their hands on. I dare you.

Cargill is a Minneapolis-based global food corporation that was founded at the end of the Civil War by William Wallace Cargill. They are responsible for trading, purchasing, and distributing a lot of the ingredients that we use to make processed foods, such as palm oil, starch, glucose syrup, vegetable oils and fats. They supply about 22% of the US domestic meat market and are responsible for 25% of all US grain exports.

The MacMillan name comes into play because John H. MacMillan Sr., William Cargill’s son-in-law, helped stabilize the company following the death of William Cargill. MacMillan brought the company out of a debt crisis and steered it into one of the largest privately owned companies in America. The total wealth of the family is unknown, but they made sure to keep the wealth close to home as 23 members of the family still own 88% of the company. As of 2019, their dominance has resulted in 14 billionaires across the family, which is more than any other family in the world.

No super fancy or cool investments like sports teams or entertainment groups here, just simply serving up American staples and pumping out palm oil profits since Lincoln was president.

David Steward

Have you ever met someone who just seems to keep evolving no matter what? They put in the work and new opportunities seem to follow suit every single time. That’s David Steward - the second wealthiest black man in America, coming only behind Robert Smith.

David grew up during the segregation era in Clinton, Missouri. He was one of the first students in his high school to integrate the public swimming pool in Clinton in 1967. After graduating from Central Missouri State University, he experienced humble beginnings, often going without a paycheck and seeing his car repossessed from the parking lot while at work. He eventually went on to land sales roles at Missouri Pacific Railroad Company and FedEx. David became so good at sales at FedEx that they inducted him into the FedEx hall of fame after being selected as salesman of the year in 1981.

In 1990, he started what ended up becoming his clear path to massive wealth, World Wide Technology (WWT). WWT provides services in cloud computing, cybersecurity, data centers, software development, and consulting. They have partnered with major tech vendors like Cisco, Dell, Intel, and Microsoft to resell and integrate their hardware and software products. In other words, they’re like a high-tech handyman that makes sure businesses get the hardware and software that they need to run efficiently. Some of their customers include Citi, Verizon, and the U.S. government.

WWT is the largest black-owned company in America, with annual revenues exceeding $20B and 10,000 employees. David Steward went from watching his car getting repossessed in the parking lot to watching the clouds go by from his private jet. Gotta love it.

The Mars Family

Your pets love them and they are also likely responsible for your impulse spending in the checkout lines at grocery stores. The Mars family is behind popular American favorites like M&Ms, Snickers, Twix, Dove Chocolate, Pedigree, and Iams. Oh yeah, and the family net worth is a cool $160B, making them the second-richest family in the world, only behind the Waltons (Walmart).

Mar-O-Bar Co. was started by Franklin Clarence Mars and Ethel V. Mars in Minneapolis in 1920, which would eventually become Mars, Inc. The family created the best selling candy bars in America during the late 1920s and early 1930s - The Milky Way, Snickers, and 3 Musketeers. Just like the family, the company is known for its secrecy. The best example of this came in 1993 when a reporter was able to see the “M” being applied to M&M’s, which was something that no “outsider had been invited to observe.”

Mars started with candy bars, but eventually branched out into pet care and chewing gum, both by expanding product lines and acquisitions. Here’s a list of some notable companies operated under Mars or subsidiaries of Mars:

That’s a ton of product lines to manage, and they haven’t come without their share of negative press. Mars, Inc. has been protested against by the Vegetarian Society for using animal rennet (made from a calf’s stomach lining) instead of vegetable rennet that comes from microorganisms. They were criticized by PETA for running lab experiments on mice, rats, guinea pigs, and rabbits. And they were also found purchasing cocoa beans from West African farmers who contributed to child and slave labor. Children as young as five years old were found working in the Ghana supply chain Mars to harvest cocoa for Snickers and M&M’s. But they eventually cleaned this up.

As of 2022, Mars had decent scores on the Chocolate Scorecard, which rates all of the large chocolate companies on their contributions to eliminating child labor, and providing a living income to cocoa farmers with transparency.

The Wertheimer Brothers

Let’s finish with a fun and fashionable duo, the Wertheimer brothers. Alan and Gerard Wertheimer are the grandsons of Pierre Wertheimer. Pierre made a deal with Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel in 1924 for a piece of the French fashion house called Chanel. You may have heard of it.

Coco Chanel was well-connected in the world of prominent Nazis and is even believed to have been an informant during World War II. Chanel even tried to wrangle the company from the Wertheimer's in 1941 because they were Jewish and owned over 50% of the company. She tried to use a French law that banned Jews from owning businesses. But the Wertheimer brothers were smart enough to hand over their stake in the business to a French businessman as they left France before the Nazi takeover.

In 1954, Pierre took back control of the company in exchange for paying Chanel’s bills and taxes for the rest of her life. She got to enjoy this luxury for the next 17 years. Pierre’s son, Jacques, took control of the company after Pierre passed in the 1960s. Jacques was only in charge for 13 years before his son, Alain, convinced the board to let him take the reins. In 1996, Alain and Gerard became co-owners of the House of Chanel and still run the company today.

Like the others included in this list, the Wertheimer brothers are very secretive. They sit in the fourth or fifth rows at their own fashion shows, and they still haven't attended a single opening of a Chanel store. The most striking example of their secrecy is their refusal to disclose their financials until 2017, after 108 years in business. Don't worry though - their sales were $9.62B. The New York Times dubbed the brothers as “fashion’s quietest billionaires.”

This select group of billionaires had stories and backgrounds that I found interesting. But there are over 3,000 billionaires in the world. Try and name as many as you can. If you can get to 40 or 50, that’s amazing. There’s still over at least 2,960 to go. That’s a lot of wealth out there that you know nothing about. But hey, at least you just knocked out 5 more.

Jay T.