Net Worths Of America’s Top 30 Business Tycoons

17. Charles Koch – $44.9 billion

Charles Koch is an American businessman with a net worth of $44.9 billion. At the age of thirty-two, Charles became CEO of famous Koch Engineering after his father’s death. In his adult life, Charles Koch was the co-owner of Koch industries with his sibling David. Koch Industries is among the largest privately-held companies in the United States by revenue. Koch has a 42 percent stake and invested in many companies such as Invista, Georgia-Pacific, Flint Hills, Koch Fertilizer, Molex, Koch Pipelines, and more. The family’s business ventures have a hand in almost every industry, and they are connected to many other massive enterprises throughout the US economy.

Koch also holds a stake in the family’s private equity fund known as Koch Equity Development and has $2 billion in cash investments. He is the writer of three books related to business philosophy: The Science of Success, Good Profit, and Market Based Management. Koch was born in 1935 in Kansas, and his parents were the co-founder of Koch industries. He attended the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology to earn a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and a Masters degree in Nuclear Engineering and Chemical Engineering. Along with this brother David, Charles was part of the notorious Koch Brothers, often targeted in left-leaning media for their extensive billions of dollars invested in conservative and Republican Party politics.