Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg was born on February 14th, 1942, in Medford, Massachusetts, a small town near Boston. Bloomberg had to work as a security guard and take care of a car while at university to help pay for his tuition. Bloomberg began his career at Salomon Brothers New York after earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University and a master's degree in business administration from Harvard University.

After leaving Salomon, Michael Bloomberg decided to put what he had learned into practice by founding Innovative Market Solution. The firm was founded to assist stock market traders with data and information. In 1986, Bloomberg changed its name to its own. He paid $200 million for a third of Merrill Lynch's holding company in 1989. The corporation now has a market value of $2 billion. Bloomberg, which included Bloomberg News and Bloomberg TV, became one of the most popular media brands of the time.

In November, the guy behind the Bloomberg terminals, which power Wall Street, committed $120 million to battle drug overdoses and $750 million to fund charter schools. In the 2020 election season, New York's former mayor spent $1.2 billion supporting Democrats (including more than $1 billion on his own failed White House bid). In a recent opinion article, he warned Democrats that "without a quick course adjustment, the party is destined for a wipeout in November."

Net worth: $82 billion