Background
Steve Jobs was born on 24 February 1955 in San Francisco, co-founded Apple in 1976, was forced out in 1985, and returned in 1997 to lead the company through the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. He died on 5 October 2011, aged 56.
The Salary That Wasn’t
From his return in 1997 Jobs famously took an annual salary of one dollar. It is a good story and a slightly misleading one: it tells you nothing about his wealth, because his wealth was never in salary. It was in equity – and, decisively, not in Apple’s.
Pixar and Disney
Jobs bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm in 1986 and turned it into Pixar. In 2006 Disney acquired Pixar for 7.4 billion dollars in an all-stock deal, which converted his Pixar holding into Disney shares and made him Disney’s largest individual shareholder (CNBC).
The scale of that position is a matter of public record. On his death the Steven P. Jobs Trust reported holding about 138 million Disney shares, a stake of roughly 7.7 per cent, worth in the region of 4.6 billion dollars (Bloomberg). As Fortune has put it, Jobs did not become a billionaire by running Apple – he became one by selling Pixar.
The Estate
His holdings passed to a trust led by his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs. Because the assets were held in living trusts rather than passing through probate, the estate was never itemised publicly in the way Prince’s was.
How the Estimate Is Calculated
Documented. The Disney position: approximately 138 million shares, about 7.7 per cent of the company, disclosed in a trust filing after his death and worth roughly 4.6 billion dollars at that point (Bloomberg). The 7.4 billion dollar Pixar acquisition in 2006 is also a matter of record (CNBC).
Estimated. His Apple holding, which was far smaller than most people assume, and any property or private investments.
Not verifiable. The trust’s full composition, which was deliberately kept out of probate and has never been published.
Why this range. Published assessments at his death spanned roughly 6.5 to 10.2 billion dollars, and the spread comes almost entirely from how Apple and Disney holdings were valued on the day. The range below reflects that. The point worth keeping is the composition rather than the total: the man synonymous with Apple held most of his fortune in Disney stock.
Estimated Net Worth
$6.5 Billion – $10.2 Billion (at his death in 2011)