Powell Jobs inherited her late husband Steve Jobs's stakes in Walt Disney and Apple. She is the founder of Emerson Collective, a social impact organization that invests in areas including immigration reform and the environment. She also owns stakes in sports teams the NBA Wizards and NHL Capitals.
The majority of Powell Jobs's fortune derives from previously held stakes in two publicly traded companies: Walt Disney and Apple. Powell Jobs controlled a 4% interest in Disney through family trusts, according to a Jan. 13, 2017, filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. There's no on-going requirement for her stake to be disclosed and it's assumed that she sold 10% of the shares annually since her last disclosure.
Her Apple stake was based on husband and company founder Steve Jobs's stake at the time of his death in 2011, as reported in Apple's February 2012 proxy statement, and assuming that she sold 10% of her shares annually. She was assumed to have sold all remaining shares in the company in 2021 based on Bloomberg's calculations.
The value of her cash investments reflects share sales, taxes, market performance, dividends and investments through her philanthropic organization, the Emerson Collective. She has invested in publications including The Atlantic, Axios, ProPublica and The Athletic. Powell Jobs has also made more than $2 billion in charitable donations through Emerson and a Goldman Sachs donor advised fund.
Powell Jobs bought a 20% stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which controls the Washington D.C. sports teams NBA Wizards, NHL Capitals as well as Capitol One Arena. A 2023 investment valued Monumental at $4.1 billion.
The net worth analysis was revised in December 2020 to incorporate assumptions that her Disney and Apple holdings were being gradually sold after they were last required to be reported. This resulted in a decrease in the net worth calculation of by about $17 billion. A subsequent update in October 2021, to reflect assumed charitable giving and asset sell downs in 2021, led to a decrease of $3.5 billion.
A spokesperson for Powell Jobs declined to comment on her net worth in March 2023.
Laurene Powell Jobs has granted few interviews in her lifetime. According to Walter Isaacson's biography, "Steve Jobs," she was born in New Jersey in 1963. Her father died in a plane crash while serving as a pilot in the Marines. After graduating from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, she took a job at Goldman Sachs, working under Jon Corzine as a fixed-income trading strategist. She quit after three years.
She met Steve Jobs in 1989 while she was pursuing an MBA at Stanford University. Jobs was appearing on campus as guest speaker. They were married two years later and had three children together.
Powell Jobs is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is founder and chairwoman of the Emerson Collective and serves on the board of College Track, both of which serve low-income students.