Portrait of Ted Turner

Rank #1498

Ted Turner

Net worth $2.8B

Cable television · United States

Born
Nov 19, 1938
Age
87
Source
Cable television
Residence
Atlanta, Georgia
Citizenship
United States
Marital status
Divorced
Children
5
Education
Bachelor of Arts/Science, Brown University

Net worth over time

Biography

  • Ted Turner is best known for founding CNN, the first 24-hour news station, in 1980.
  • After his father died in 1963, Turner took control of his father's billboard company, Turner Advertising, and rebranded it "Turner Broadcasting."
  • He sold Turner to Time Warner for $7.3 billion in stock in 1996 and saw his fortune tumble when Time Warner bought AOL in 2001, causing shares to drop.
  • Turner is America's third-largest individual landowner, with roughly 2 million acres.
  • Turner, a Giving Pledge signee, chairs the Turner Foundation Inc, which is dedicated to protecting and restoring America's natural environments.
  • Turner owns a more than 30,000-acre estate in Florida called Avalon Plantation, where he married actress Jane Fonda in 1991.
  • Turner sold St. Phillips Island, his private island off of South Carolina, to the state in a charitable transfer in 2017. The land is now part of a state park.