Elon Musk, George Soros, Sergey Brin and 8 more immigrants who became billionaires after moving to the US
Elon Musk, George Soros, Sergey Brin and 8 more immigrants who became billionaires after moving to the US
Donald Trump may victimise immigrants, but many of America’s best-known billionaires – including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, investor George Soros, Google’s Sergey Brin and WhatsApp’s Jan Koum – were born outside the US
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Pictured here with his sons, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk moved to the US from South Africa – one of many billionaire immigrants who made their fortune in the US. Photo: Martin Shoeller
The United States is home to more billionaires than any other nation, according to research firm Wealth-X – but not all of them were born in the US.
Several billionaires – including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, real estate developer Jorge Pérez, Panda Express founders Peggy and Andrew Cherng and Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya – first came to the US for further education. Others immigrated earlier with their families as children.
Keep reading to learn more about some of the most prominent billionaires in America who were born outside the country.
Sergey Brin’s family emigrated from the Soviet Union when he was six
Sergey Brin was born in the former Soviet Union. Photo: AP
Net worth: US$57.5 billion
Source of wealth: Alphabet
The 46-year-old billionaire founded the search engine now known as Google with Larry Page, in a garage in Menlo Park, California. Brin currently serves as the president of Alphabet, the parent company that owns Google.
Hamdi Ulukaya founded the yogurt brand Chobani after emigrating from Turkey to attend college in New York
Hamdi Ulukaya moved from Turkey to attend university in the US. Photo: Reuters
Net worth: US$2.1 billion
Source of wealth: Chobani
Ulukaya, 46, received a US$3,000 loan from the Small Business Administration in 2007 and used it to buy an old yogurt plant in Norwich, New York. Chobani now sells more than US$1 billion of yogurt annually and is America's most popular brand of Greek yogurt, Forbes reports.
Ulukaya now advocates for companies to get involved in the ongoing refugee crisis, Bloomberg reported in August. Chobani recruits refugees for jobs at its plants and encourages other companies to do the same.
Financier George Soros fled Soviet occupation in his native Hungary in 1947
George Soros fled Soviet-occupied Hungary. Photo: Reuters
Net worth: US$8.3 billion
Source of wealth: Quantum Fund
Soros, 89, attended the London School of Economics before moving to New York and getting a job as a stock trader. Soros went on to found what would later become the world's largest hedge fund, Quantum Fund.
Eren Ozmen, the president of aerospace company Sierra Nevada Corporation, immigrated to the US from Turkey
German Chancellor Angela Merkel meets Eren Ozmen, at an aviation conference in Schkeuditz, Germany. Photo: Reuters
Net worth: US$1.4 billion
Source of wealth: Sierra Nevada Corp
Ozmen, 61, and her husband used their house as collateral to purchase Sierra Nevada Corporation in 1994. Ozmen grew the 20-person company into one of the federal government's largest contractors, having sold billions of dollars of planes, navigation gear and communications systems to the US Department of Defense.
Miami real estate developer Jorge Pérez was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Miami real estate developer Jorge Pérez moved to the US for education, from his native Argentina. Photo: AP
Net worth: US$1.9 billion
Source of wealth: The Related Group
Perez, 70, moved to the US for college, and later worked as an urban planner before partnering with Stephen Ross to launch Miami-based luxury real estate developer The Related Group.
Bharat Desai, the founder of IT consulting firm Syntel, was born in Kenya and raised in India
Bharat Desai moved to the US from Kenya for work. Photo: YouTube
Net worth: US$1.4 billion
Source of wealth: Syntel Inc
Desai, 66, came to the US to work for Tata Consultancy Services. He and his wife, Neerja Sethi, then started their own consulting company, Syntel, in their suburban Detroit apartment with just US$2,000.
Early Google investor Kavitark Ram Shriram was born and raised in India
Alphabet board member Kavitark Ram Shriram was born and raised in India
Net worth: US$2.2 billion
Source of wealth: Venture capital
Shriram, 62, serves on Alphabet's board and holds stakes in numerous tech start-ups (including Paperless Post) through his venture capital firm Sherpalo Ventures.
Panda Express founders Peggy and Andrew Cherng immigrated to the US from Myanmar and China respectively, before meeting as students at Baker University
Panda Express founders Peggy and Andrew Cherng met while studying in the US. Photo: Facebook
Collective net worth: US$3.1 billion
Source of wealth: Panda Express
Andrew Cherng opened a sit-down Chinese restaurant called Panda Inn in 1973 that proved so successful he decided to open an outpost in a nearby mall called Panda Express. The couple still owns and operates virtually all 2,000 Panda Express locations themselves – they don't franchise them out to other owners, making Panda Express a rarity among restaurant chains of its size.
WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum immigrated to California from Ukraine with his mother when he was 16
WhatsApp founder Jan Koum moved to the states from Ukraine as a teenager. Photo: Shutterstock
Net worth: US$10.9 billion
Source of wealth: WhatsApp
Koum, 43, founded the messaging service with seed money he raised from his former colleagues at Yahoo, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Most of Koum's fortune comes from Facebook's US$22 billion acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014.
Pierre Omidyar moved to the US from France with his family long before he founded eBay
eBay founder and chairman Pierre Omidyar moved to the US from France. Photo: Reuters
Net worth: US$12.6 billion
Source of wealth: eBay
Omidyar, 52, founded eBay in 1995 and wrote the code for the website himself, according to Forbes. Omidyar still serves on the board of the online auction house.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk grew up in South Africa and worked in Canada before coming to the US
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of SpaceX and Tesla, is a role model to many aspiring entrepreneurs. Photo: Bloomberg
Net worth: US$20.7 billion
Source of wealth: PayPal, Tesla
Iconic entrepreneur Musk, 48, first moved to the US to attend the University of Pennsylvania. The CEO founded a city guide service for newspapers called Zip2 and an online banking platform named X.com that was acquired by PayPal. He later founded SpaceX and co-founded Tesla, taking the top job of CEO.
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