Orange County isn’t a place for the idle rich.
Fariborz Maseeh was feted by a Longhorn mascot and balloons after a donation to the University of Texas at Austin, which has named its engineering school after the Iranian immigrant.
“I’m working as hard as I always have and having as much fun as I’ve always have,” Maseeh told the Business Journal. “I’m running my family office. I’m enjoying starting companies and investing.”
Anthony Hsieh in June returned as chief executive to the mortgage company he started, loanDepot Inc.
“I am feeling good getting back to the industry that I love,” Hsieh wrote on LinkedIn.
Wong Luen Hei broke ground on what will become a 3.2 million square foot factory in China for his Lesso Group.
Bill Gross, the bond king who retired in 2019, has set a new goal for himself – building his family foundation to $1 billion from its current $865 million.
“Get up at 5:30 a.m. to invest from my office until 1 p.m.,” Gross told the Business Journal.
“Causes include 50% of $20 million annual donations locally in Orange County and Southern California.”
Henry Samueli donned a hard hat to sign the final beam on what will become a showpiece concert hall in his $4 billion OCVibe project in Anaheim.
And not only did Samueli top off a building, but he also topped off the 2025 list of the wealthiest in Orange County, unseating perennial No. 1 Irvine Company owner Donald Bren, the real estate mogul has led our list almost every year since it began in 2001.
Up 44%
This week’s issue ranks 43 billionaires who either reside or have homes in Orange County – or run a business here. We count 12 as “weekend wealthy” who while they don’t reside in Orange County full time, they have homes here. See page 15 for the start of our special report. The list cutoff is $1.25 billion.
Cumulatively, they had a second straight great year – as their wealth climbed an estimated 43% to $256 billion; last year, their wealth was up 25%.
If these 43 were the GDP of a nation, they would rank No. 68, just ahead of New Zealand and 156 other countries.
While the S&P 500 rose 13.6% for the year ended June 30, for most of the richest, we estimated a conservative 7% to 8% increase, assuming they have diversified into a variety of classes safer and more tax efficient than the S&P 500. If they are active in business, we increased those percentages to over 10% unless they had a notable setback.
The overall 44% increase was driven by six of the 10 wealthiest who saw their worth climb more than 20% each. The latest list features a record nine individuals with net worths exceeding $10 billion, nearly double last year’s five.
Several of the largest gains were driven by surging stock prices in companies that they founded – and where they have retained significant stakes.
For example, for the second straight year, our biggest estimated increase was 80% to $21.7 billion for Ernest Garcia II because his stock in Carvana Co. tripled in the past year.
While our initial inclination is to be skeptical of such a jump, both Forbes and Bloomberg say his worth is even higher.
Garcia’s wealth has bounced around significantly; he topped our 2021 list with an estimated $18.5 billion. A year later, his wealth fell to $4 billion in our estimate.
A source of the volatility can be traced to Carvana, which was started by his son, Ernest Garcia III. In 2021, shares of the car sales website topped $350 each. In 2023, they fell below $5 and Garcia was reportedly buying on the dip. At press time, the shares traded at $338 with a $40 billion market cap (NYSE: CVNA).
AI Gains
The big story is about the rise of Broadcom, which Samueli and fellow wealthiest list member Henry Nicholas III (No. 8) co-founded in 1991.
The company was sold in 2016 to Avago Technologies for $37 billion in cash and stock.
Avago, which had a similar value at that time, kept the Broadcom name and moved the headquarters from Irvine to Silicon Valley.
Since Broadcom shares began surging in 2020, they’ve risen more than nine-fold to $278.59 and a $1.3 trillion market cap, making it one of the world’s most valuable publicly traded companies (Nasdaq: AVGO).
During that five-year span, we estimated Samueli’s worth has jumped more than five-fold from $5.5 billion in 2020 to $29 billion this year. Samueli remains as chairman and now holds 1.9% of the company, worth almost $25 billion in itself.
The stock has jumped 73% in the past year as investors bet the company will benefit from its AI technology. Analysts are projecting the company’s revenue to soar 22% this year to $63 billion and another 20% next year to $75.4 billion.
Samueli’s worth also includes the Anaheim Ducks, now valued at about $1.3 billion, up from $925 million a year ago, and real estate he owns in Anaheim where he is developing what he hopes will be Orange County’s downtown with the OCVibe.
Samueli, rather than cash out, decided last year to use $2.7 billion of Broadcom shares to secure loans for OCVibe. The move paid off as the stock has risen 20% year to date.
“To us, it’s a great investment in this community and hopefully a transformative investment that will attract people of all ages to come and have fun here,” Samueli said.
Bren at No. 3
Meanwhile, we estimate that Bren’s worth increased 5% to $19.2 billion, despite the meltdown in the office sector. The company in the past year has sold downtown San Diego high rises to focus on buildings in the La Jolla area.
While high-rise offices have cratered in price in the past year as the work-from-home trend affects occupancies, the Business Journal doesn’t think Bren’s 590 office buildings have fallen as much as others because he owns Class A structures in highly desirable areas such as Silicon Valley, the Irvine Spectrum and New York City’s famed MetLife Building, which may be the top building in the country in annual rent.
Furthermore, apartments are still in favor; Bren owns 125 apartment communities with 65,000 units.
One Decliner
Newcomers on this list are from Iran: No. 28 Maseeh and No. 43 the Moshayedi brothers.
We estimate that only one entry saw a decline, compared to six a year ago.
The wealth of RJ Scaringe, founder and CEO of Rivian Automotive, fell another 15% to $1.6 billion. A year ago, we also estimated a 15% drop.
Shares of Irvine-based electric vehicle maker Rivian dropped 18% in the past year to $14.12 and a $16.9 billion market cap (Nasdaq: RIVN).
When Scaringe debuted on our 2021 list, we estimated his wealth at $5 billion.
Another notable young entrepreneur is Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Costa Mesa-based Anduril Industries – his second startup to become a unicorn – is reportedly valued at $30.5 billion, up from $8.5 billion just two years ago. So, we bumped up Luckey’s estimated worth 50% to $7.5 billion, lifting his rank three spots this year to No. 11.
Palmer may already have a third unicorn in the making – Erebor, a crypto-currency
focused bank is reportedly valued at $2 billion.
Another noteworthy event: President Donald Trump has nominated Lisa Argyros (birth name Melissa) to be the ambassador to Latvia; she follows in the footsteps of her father George Argyros, who was ambassador to Spain in the early 2000s.
