Rank #1201
Brian Acton
Net worth $3.6B
WhatsApp · United States
- Born
- Feb 17, 1972
- Age
- 54
- Source
- Residence
- Palo Alto, California
- Citizenship
- United States
- Marital status
- Married
- Children
- 1
- Education
- Bachelor of Arts/Science, Stanford University
Net worth over time
Biography
- Computer engineer Brian Acton cofounded messaging app WhatsApp with Jan Koum in 2007; the two had met while working at Yahoo.
- The pair sold WhatsApp to Facebook for $22 billion in cash and stock in 2014. Acton left WhatsApp at the end of 2017.
- Acton received about $3 billion for his stake in WhatsApp. The mobile messaging app has over 3 billion users in 180 countries.
- In 2018, he committed $50 million to Signal Foundation - the nonprofit behind the signal mobile app focused on preserving private communication.
- Acton and wife, Tegan, have also founded three other philanthropic entities. In total, the couple holds over $1 billion in charitable vehicles.
- Five years before Facebook bought WhatsApp, Acton had applied for a job at Facebook and was rejected.
- Acton tweeted "#deletefacebook" in March 2018 in the wake of revelations that Facebook had enabled Cambridge Analytica to improperly handle data from users.