Betsy DeVos is most well-known for serving as the United States Secretary of Education, but she’s also incredibly wealthy. How did she get so rich?
Betsy DeVos (and her family) have most of their wealth tied up in stock, particularly in the Amway company, worth around $1.3b alone. They also own 25% of a successful basketball team, as well as various other investments.
Read on to learn more about Betsy DeVos, and how she became so rich.
The Woman With The Wealth
Betsy DeVos is fortunate enough to have both been born into and married into great wealth. Her father, Edgar Prince, was a wildly successful engineer and industrialist. In the mid-20th century, Prince made his fortune in the auto parts industry, supplying car parts to manufacturers.
He was only in his late twenties when Betsy was born, but was already well on the track to huge monetary gains. The bulk of his firm was formed in 1965 with two colleagues, in the form of a die-cast machine manufacturing company. This organization saw great success and by 1987 had over 1500 employees on the books.
The vast majority of DeVos’ money actually comes from her husband. The DeVos family were incredibly successful in business, particularly throughout the late-20th to early-21st centuries. The foundations of the Amway company – a marketing organization – paved the way for billions of dollars’ worth of sales year on year.
It’s estimated that Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick DeVos, own around 12% of Amway. This would equate to a value of around $1.3 billion in one company. The pair also own the 25% of successful national basketball team, the Orlando Magics. In terms of stake value, this equates to around $300 million.
All in all, the dramatically wealthy couple draw in monetary gains from around eighty five individual sources. These range from private investments to stocks, and from real estate to business dealings.
This Tweet explains how DeVos reported “up to $100 million or more in income” in 2019.
Place Among The Politics
It would be unfair to suggest that Betsy DeVos hasn’t ever worked for anything in her life. Despite being born into a wealthier family and marrying into an even richer one, she has had some great accomplishments of her own.
As an early entrepreneurial venture, DeVos co-founded a private investment management firm, called the Windquest Group. This organization became successful and lucrative in of itself, generating a wide amount of profit for the couple.
Betsy DeVos has always been a stalwart spokesperson for the benefit of good education. This is a fact that is clearly shown by her career aspirations, taking the path of the political to make changes within this sector.
However, there have been many controversies surrounding DeVos’ ascension to Secretary of Education, particularly in American media. It was alleged that her family spent millions of dollars trying to privatize public schooling. Further, education experts made claims that she was the “first secretary of education with zero experience with public schools.”
Finally, and most troubling, were the allegations that DeVos literally had no qualifications suited to the role. She employed religion as often as possible when driving reform decisions in schooling, and remained guarded on some very controversial topics. The worst of which was not confirming whether or not she believes guns should be allowed in schools.
There was a video circulated in mid-2017 that shows Betsy DeVos being aggressively booed throughout a speech at a University.
Although, you can’t say DeVos is in this role for the money. As secretary of education, it’s alleged that she accepted a salary of just one dollar. While she might be going about certain aspects incorrectly, she didn’t take the role for monetary gain. It is, of course, likely that this is simply because she was already a member of one of the richest families in the United States.