Rank 47
Len Blavatnik
31B
Music, chemicals
London
United States
- Blavatnik bought artist Damien Hirst's giant gilded wooly mammoth skeleton entitled "Gone (but) Not Forgotten" for $15 million in 2014.
- Blavatnik has been a producer on several Broadway shows including "The Front Page" and "Sunset Boulevard."
- Born in Ukraine, raised north of Moscow, Len Blavatnik immigrated to the U.S. in 1978 with his family; he studied computer science at Columbia University and received an MBA from Harvard Business School.
- He made an early fortune from Russian oil company TNK-BP, including billions in dividends paid by the joint venture and the sale of his stake in 2013 for $7 billion.
- After purchasing Warner Music in 2011 for $3.3 billion, he took the company public in June 2020 at quadruple the value.
- His investment firm Access Industries holds stakes in chemicals firm LyondellBasell, energy conglomerate Calpine and house flipping website Opendoor.
- Blavatnik says he has given or pledged over $1 billion to philanthropy, mostly to universities, including Oxford, Stanford, Harvard and Yale.
- He is a dual citizen of the U.S. and the U.K.