Russ Weiner

Net worth over time

Biography

• Russ Weiner founded energy drink company Rockstar in 2001.
• Weiner sold Rockstar to PepsiCo in 2020, in a deal worth more than $4 billion.
• The son of right-wing talk-radio star Michael Savage, Weiner ran for California State Assembly in 1998.
• Though he lost the race, Weiner caught the eye of his father's friend, Skyy Vodka founder Maurice Kanbar, who quickly hired him.
• When Kanbar rejected Weiner's idea for an energy drink, Weiner quit and launched Rockstar using a $50,000 mortgage on his Sausalito, Calif. condo.
• Weiner started a yard service company in his Northern California neighborhood at age 8 and worked the drive-thru at Wendy's at 15.
• Weiner once owned a 161-foot yacht named 'Rockstar' that was damaged by a Miami drawbridge.
• When the first Rockstar cans hit stores and bars, Weiner drove around San Francisco in an old limo painted with the Rockstar logo to promote it.