According to a recent Forbes list, Star Wars inventor and Lucasfilm founder George Lucas has an estimated net worth of $5.5 billion, making him the richest celebrity in 2024.
On October 30, 2012, Disney paid $4.05 billion in cash and shares for Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise and Lucas' place at the top of the list appears to be due to the stock options he gained from the transaction.
After selling Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, George Lucas has mostly withdrawn from the film industry, with the exception of a few minor indie film projects here and there.
Lucas also continues to get union-regulated residuals from all films and television shows released prior to Disney's acquisition of the Star Wars franchise.
On the decision to sell his company and partially retire, Lucas previously stated, "In 2012 I was 69. So the question was am I going to keep doing this for the rest of my life? Do I want to go through this again? Finally, I decided I’d rather raise my daughter and enjoy life for a while… I’m one of those micromanager guys, and I can’t help it. So I figured I would forgo that, enjoy what I had, and I was looking forward to raising my daughter."
While Lucas is certainly obscenely wealthy, given all the billion-dollar box office films, television shows, toys, and theme park expansions Disney has made with the IP since 2012, do you think the $4 billion purchase price was a steal?
However, to put Forbes' list in further context, he only ranks #309 on Bloomberg's billionaire index (where Forbes' rival estimates that Lucas' net worth is actually just a little north of $8 billion).
LVMH founder and CEO Bernard Arnault tops that list at $228 billion, followed by Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg.
1. George Lucas ($5.5B)
2. Steven Spielberg ($4.8B)
3. Michael Jordan ($3.2B)
4. Oprah Winfrey ($2.8B)
5. Jay-Z ($2.5B)
6. Kim Kardashian ($1.7B)
7. Peter Jackson ($1.5B)
8. Rihanna and Tyler Perry ($1.4B)
9. Tiger Woods ($1.3B)
10. LeBron James, Magic Johnson and Dick Wolf ($1.2B)
11. Taylor Swift ($1.1B)