What was Foster Friess' net worth? GOP megadonor who died at 81 donated over $500M in his lifetime
Foster Friess, a major Republican donor and investment manager has died at the age of 81. Friess backed socially conservative and Christian right organizations and politicians like Rick Santorum, as well as philanthropic endeavors around the world, including Kurds opposing ISIS. He said in March, according to Fox News, that he was battling myelodysplastic syndrome, a cancer that affects the bone marrow.
He ran for governor of Wyoming unsuccessfully in 2018 and his previous encounters with the public often resulted in controversy, such as when he suggested on live television in 2012 that Bayer aspirin was an effective contraceptive and when he released a Hitler-themed parody video criticizing Obamacare in 2017. Here's all you need to know about how much Foster Friess is worth.
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What was Foster Friess's net worth?
Celebrity Net Worth pits Friess' net worth at $140 million. While Wikipedia and Jackson Hole News and Guide in early 2021 wrote his net worth would be approaching $1 billion if not for his charitable year-end giving which “reduced his proximity” to billionaire status.
The American businessman earned his net worth from his company known as Friess Associates. Born on April 2, 1940 in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, a town of only 5,000 people Friess' father was a cattle dealer and he grew up on the family farm. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a bachelor's degree in business administration and served as president of the Chi Phi Fraternity. While serving in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, Friess was recognized as one of the "ten most outstanding senior men." He is also a born-again evangelical Christian and Republican who was a supporter of the George W Bush administration.
Friess has backed a number of religious and conservative groups, including Private Sector Solutions, LibForAll, and the Free Market Cure. The Alliance for School Choice and All Children Matter are two of his educational causes. He was deemed the "longest-surviving successful growth-stock picker, having navigated markets for 36 years" by BusinessWeek in a 2001 article. In 1999, CNBC dubbed Friess one of the "century’s great investors."
Friess reportedly sold a 51 percent stake in his company to AMG for $247 million in 2001, yet he still owned 10% of the company, Forbes reported. Friess donated over $500 million in his lifetime, according to the press release announcing his death. He was a major donor to Republican political action committees, state republican parties and Republican candidates like Trump, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and many more. Friess was well known for bankrolling the presidential ambitions of former Sen. Rick Santorum with over $2 million in donation to the Red, White and Blue Fund.
Following this, he started being identified as a millionaire. When Friess entered the limelight, media started referring to him as "billionaire Foster Friess." Friess countered that he wasn't worth $1 billion and joked that if he was a billionaire, this was news to him. As he told the Washington Post: "My wife came to me and said, 'Have you been holding out on me?' People asked, 'So what are you — a multimillionaire?' I like to say a billionaire wanna-be." In the last three weeks of March 2021, he donated almost $78,000 to political causes, states ABC News.
His wife Lynnette Friess, his four children and fifteen grandkids survive Friess.