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Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is worth $5.5 billion - here's how he spends his fortune, from a $36.4 million penthouse to a year-long trip around the world
Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is worth $5.5 billion - here's how he spends his fortune, from a $36.4 million penthouse to a year-long trip around the world
Kalanick keeps his personal life fairly under wraps, but it's clear he spends much of his fortune on real estate and travel.
He has no clear ventures into philanthropy.
Travis Kalanick co-founded Uber in 2009. But, after a series of scandals and a workplace culture where discrimination and sexual harassment were the norm, Kalanick resigned as CEO in 2017.
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Though he's no longer leading the global ride-hailing company, Kalanick remains wealthy. He's worth $5.45 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Travis Kalanick presently has a reported net worth of $5.45 billion. Much of that is from holding 7% of Uber's stock, a company now valued at $76 billion.
As Business Insider previously reported, he was, up until recently, relatively "cash-poor for a billionaire." But his liquid assets saw a boost after he sold $1.4 billion in Uber shares to Japanese tech giant SoftBank.
Far from wealthy at that point, Kalanick was collecting unemployment checks while working full-time on Scour. A group of entertainment companies sued Scour for $250 million, forcing the start-up to fold.
Kalanick quickly rebounded with RedSwoosh, a networking software company that he called his "revenge business." He co-founded Red Swoosh in 2000, and then sold it for $23 million in 2007.
The earnings from Red Swoosh made Kalanick a millionaire. He took a year off in 2007, after selling the company, and went to Spain, Japan, Greece, Iceland, Greenland, Hawaii, France, Australia, Portugal, Cape Verde, and Senegal.
The lavish lifestyle that followed Kalanick's sudden rise to millionaire status in the late 2000s also helped foster the idea for creating Uber. He and his friends spent $800 on a private driver one New Year's — so he started thinking about ways to make black cab service more economical.
Uber was then founded in 2009. But nowadays, Kalanick has his own private driver. A series of accusations against the company's workplace and ethics eventually led to Kalanick leaving in 2017.
He sailed around the islands in a $70 million sailing vessel owned by media mogul Barry Diller and fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. The boat, called Eos, is 305 feet long and can hold 16 guests and 21 crew members on board.
New York City, with its plentiful taxis, bike lanes, and public transit options is a good place for Kalanick to settle down... because, as of June 2016, the Uber co-founder reportedly only had an expired driver's license.
While we don't know much about Kalanick's Los Angeles pad, but we do know he just bought a $36.4 million apartment in Manhattan. It's the penthouse at the under-construction 565 Broome SoHo — a 30-story luxury apartment building.
Here's a rendering of what Kalanick's penthouse will look like. It's 6,655 square feet with a 2,500-square-foot private roof terrace. And there's a 20-foot heated outdoor pool with 360-degree views.
Real estate is definitely the name of the game in Kalanick's post-Uber world. In March, he bought City Storage Systems, which redevelops underused industry, retail and parking sites, for $150 million. He then made himself CEO. "There are over $10 trillion in these real estate assets that will need to be repurposed for the digital era," he tweeted after the acquisition.
That acquisition was funded by Kalanick's new investment fund, 10100. It's dedicated to funding promising firms in e-commerce and real estate, as well as emerging tech in China and India.
As for what Kalanick's own philanthropic efforts, it's not clear how he gives back with his $5.5 billion fortune, or what he intends to do with his money after he dies. A source close to Kalanick said he has "no interest, from what I can tell, in philanthropy."
Instead, he seems intent on doing good through capitalism. He's mentioned Uber programs where gifts are delivered to less fortunate children during the holidays and supplies delivered to displaced people leaving Syria.
In his new job leading investment fund 10100, he said in March that he's focusing on "large-scale job creation." But, as the LA Times pointed out, it's not clear what sort of jobs he plans on creating. "At Uber, Kalanick was criticized for kickstarting an entire sector of the tech industry reliant on contract workers rather than employees," the LA Times' David Pierson wrote. "Uber itself is expected to someday replace its drivers with autonomous vehicles."
