Hey, Millionaire! We all look up to billionaires.
And why not? It takes hard work and dedication to make that kind of money - most of the time,
anyway. And there's not one person watching this video that wouldn't want to become a billionaire.
Having that kind of money in the bank must be great. Unless you're dumb enough to lose it all.
And if you think that only happens to billionaires in developing countries, you're wrong. Even though
the world views the US as the birthplace of the billionaire, American billionaires still go broke
all the time! Here's our list of the dumbest US Billionaires who went broke and lost it all.
6. Allen Stanford
Allen Stanford is maybe the worst loser in history. He used to be the owner of an ordinary
fitness club in Texas. But when his club went bankrupt, he decided to turn to fraud instead.
I know everyone feels cheated sometimes, but that seems like an overreaction. He started by
opening Stanford Financial Group - an offshore banking firm. Then, he started looking for the
perfect victims. His targets were, sadly, mainly retired people. He promised that his investments
were totally safe, so they gave him cash that they couldn't really afford to spend. He soon had about
$18,000 customers and a total of $7 billion in stolen money. In case you were wondering,
that huge total makes this the second largest Ponzi scheme in the history of America. We'll
get to the 1st largest in a minute. In 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission finally
raided Stanford's Huston headquarters. They found more than enough evidence to charge Stanford and
his associates with running a massive, ongoing fraud. He got a deserved sentence of 110 years
in federal prison. But the sad truth is that almost none of his victims got any money back.
5. Jocelyn Wildenstein You'll definitely be familiar with
this billionaire's face - after all, she's best known for her over-the-top cosmetic surgery. But
where did all her money come from? And, more importantly, where did it go? But she first
started making headlines thanks to a high-profile divorce. Her husband was the renowned billionaire
art dealer Alec Wildenstein. Thanks to the divorce in 1999, Jocelyn became a billionaire in her own
right - by taking loads of her husband's money in the divorce settlement - $2.5 billion, to be
exact. But in 2018, she filed for bankruptcy. It's crazy to think she could've lost all that money in
just 18 years. But according to her, it was never enough. Jocelyn claims the divorce settlement was
faulty, and she was actually promised much more than the giant sum of $2.5 billion.
The money wasn't all she got - she also received two paintings by famous artists in the settlement,
but one turned out to be a forgery, and the other sold for just a fraction of its value.
Maybe that's what she's complaining about. She said at the time her bankruptcy went public
that she was on the lookout for a lawyer to help her get what she was owed. But her ex-husband
died a few years ago, so it looks like she's on a hunt for buried treasure.
I also don't know how she'll pay for this lawyer when she claims she has $0 in her bank account.
Do you think Wildenstein was cheated in her divorce settlement? Tell us in the comments!
Keep watching for more billion-dollar mistakes.
4. Bernard Madoff Bernard Madoff is
one of the most accomplished thieves of all time. In case you don't know,
he was once an ordinary financier. Way back in 1960, he opened his own Wall Street firm,
called Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities. I don't know when he decided to turn his whole firm
into one giant Ponzi scheme, but it turned out he was pretty good at it. The plan was surprisingly
simple. He told his clients he'd invest their cash in a way that guaranteed a high and steady
conversion. Then he took all the cash they gave them and, instead of investing it, he just
put it all into a single account to gather the interest. And he got away with this for over two
decades! He successfully conned his investors out of an unbelievable $64.8 billion! He was flying
high for a long time. He might have been able to get away with this for the rest of his life - if
it weren't for the 2008 financial crisis. A group of his investors suddenly requested $7 billion in
funds - but Madoff only had a maximum of $300 million left. With nowhere near enough funds,
a federal investigation was launched that uncovered his gigantic fraud. The courts
didn't take pity on him in the trial. He was charged with 11 counts of fraud, theft, perjury,
and money laundering and received a maximum sentence of 150 years in prison! He only spent a
few years in his cell, though - he passed away in a prison medical center in 2021 at the age of 82.
3. Aubrey McClendon Aubrey McClendon was once called the world's most
reckless billionaire by Forbes, and it looks like they were right. He made his billions as
the founder of Chesapeake Energy - an oil and gas company. The company had been in operation
for years, but it was his move toward fracking for natural gas that made him a real billionaire. In
2011, he was worth $1.2 billion, but by 2013 he was kicked out of his own company. He wasn't that
concerned - he vowed to create a new, even better company in the field. He walked out of the office
with a stack of maps showing all the natural gas deposits so he'd know exactly where to go
when he got his new company off the ground. But it turned out they had good reason to get rid of him.
It didn't take long for the federal antitrust authorities to accuse him of conspiring to rig
bids in drilling lease auctions. That's a serious accusation, and it sent his billions up in smoke.
It wouldn't matter in the long run, though. He was known for driving just as recklessly as he
conducted his business. Just one day after being indicted on those charges, he died in a car crash.
What do you think about the stories we've had so far? Give us your thoughts in the comments! And
keep watching - the billionaire in our number 1 spot made the worst mistake on our list!
2. Alberto Vilar Alberto Vilar was riding high as the founder
of Amerindo Investment Advisors. Most investment managers only dream of becoming as successful as
Vilar and his business partner. After all, their company made about a billion dollars. And that
means a lot of profit was going into Vilar's pocket. It was all going great until 2000.
A sudden, major stock market sell-off made a big impact on Vilar's company - and not in a good way.
They might have recovered, except for one problem - in 2005, Vilar and his business partner
were both arrested. It turned out they'd been conducting securities fraud. Within just 3 years,
they were convicted of money laundering, stock fraud, and wire fraud. There's no way
for a company to make back its billions when its founders are serving a 10-year prison sentence.
And finally, the dumbest billionaire on our list is...
1. Elizabeth Holmes We all wish we could become the next great
inventor and make billions - and that's exactly what Elizabeth Holmes did. Well, almost. In the
early 2000s, she launched her company, Theranos. She claimed that she'd invented a revolutionary
blood testing method that would completely change the way people were tested and treated
for diseases. It looked like a great investment opportunity, and the money started flowing in.
By the end of 2004, the company had more than $6 million thanks to private investments. Even some
of Holmes' friends had put large amounts of cash into her new business. By 2015, Holmes became the
youngest ever self-made female billionaire when the investments in Theranos hit a whopping $9
billion. She was now one of the richest people in Silicon Valley, thanks to all the profit funneling
into her personal account from those large investments. But she'd already made the mistake
that was going to unravel everything. Three years before, she'd tried to convince Lieutenant Colonel
David Shoemaker to approve a test run of her breakthrough blood testing tech in the military.
But Shoemaker wasn't easily fooled. He decided that the tech Holmes had shown him didn't seem
right, and he raised his concerns with the FDA. They'd already given Theranos one approval, but
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services - or CMS - started an inspection of the company, but
Holmes was quick to tell them her device was still under development. Soon, the news media was doing
their own digging. The unwanted attention led to some major partners stepping away from Theranos,
and Holmes' bank balance started dropping. It didn't take long for the CMS to notice that this
new tech posed some serious safety risks. Soon, Holmes had a stack of lawsuits on her hands,
and the feds were openly calling Theranos a massive fraud. The company dissolved along
with all Holmes' money. She was even forced to pay $500,000 to settle the charges. In 2022,
she is still awaiting trial, so we'll have to wait to hear the real end of the story.