Rank #765
Neal Blue & family
Net worth $5.5B
Defense · United States
- Born
- Apr 04, 1935
- Age
- 91
- Source
- Defense
- Residence
- San Diego, California
- Citizenship
- United States
- Marital status
- Widowed
- Children
- 4
- Education
- Bachelor of Arts/Science, Yale University
Net worth over time
Biography
- Neal Blue is chairman and CEO of General Atomics, a defense company based in San Diego.
- The company is best known as the manufacturer of the Predator drone, one of the first drones to fly over Afghanistan after 9/11.
- The largest private government contractor in the U.S., GA's clients include foreign nations such as Italy, Spain, and the UAE.
- With his brother Linden, he bought the then nuclear energy company from Chevron for a reported $60 million in 1986.
- After graduating from Yale, Blue served in the U.S. Air Force as a nuclear weapons custodian.
- In 1956, Neal, then 21, and Linden, 20, raised $3,000 to fly a single-propeller plan across Central and South America. Life Magazine put them on its cover.
- General Atomics' prototype unmanned fighter jet, the YFQ-42A, has been dubbed Dark Merlin.