The power of Ari: How Donald Trump’s former agent became a billionaire

Ari Emanuel has worn many hats over his career, including Hollywood power broker, tech investor, pro wrestling executive and Donald Trump’s agent. Now, he has one more to add: billionaire.

Emanuel, 63, has a personal net worth of at least $US1 billion ($1.6 billion), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which is valuing his wealth for the first time. Emanuel’s leveraging of that fortune has recently been in the news: He’s one of the backers behind Elon Musk’s $US97.4 billion unsolicited bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI.

Ari Emanuel’s wealth is soaring. Credit: Bloomberg

Driving Emanuel’s wealth gains over the past year has been a 48 per cent rise in the share price of Endeavor Group, the Beverly Hills-based media and entertainment conglomerate that makes up most of his net worth.

Some of the gains have also come from Endeavor’s majority stake in TKO Group, the company behind World Wrestling Entertainment and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which has nearly doubled in value in the past 12 months. Emanuel, who is Endeavor’s chief executive, also fills that role at TKO Group.

Maura McGreevy, an Endeavor spokesperson, didn’t respond to requests for comment on Emanuel’s net worth.

A-list clients

A Chicago native, Emanuel started his career in Hollywood in 1987, working in the mail room at Creative Artists Agency. The younger brother of former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel, Ari earned a reputation as an ambitious agent with a deep Rolodex. In 1995, he started his own agency, Endeavor, bringing along three colleagues and the files they had stored at their former employer’s office.

“I didn’t really think about where it was going, I just went, and kept on going,” Emanuel told Bloomberg News in November. “I have a lot more plans now, but back then, it was like, ‘I want to be my own boss. I want to do this thing,’ and one thing led to another.”

Through the 2000s, Endeavor amassed an A-list portfolio, representing clients such as Oprah Winfrey and Matt Damon. Emanuel became the inspiration for Ari Gold, the brash Hollywood uber-agent played by Jeremy Piven in the HBO series Entourage. In 2009, Endeavor combined with competitor William Morris Agency, at the time the largest talent agency merger in history.

Emanuel became the inspiration for Ari Gold, the brash Hollywood uber-agent played by Jeremy Piven in the HBO series Entourage.Credit: Claudette Barius

Over the next decade, Endeavor began to diversify into the entertainment and media businesses, which today make up more than half of its revenue. In 2014, it spent $US2.4 billion on IMG Worldwide, taking over the firm’s sports and modelling clients. Two years later, it acquired Ultimate Fighting Championship, the mixed-martial arts production company led by Dana White, for $US4 billion in a private equity-backed deal.

As Endeavor’s reputation grew, so did Emanuel’s reach. He became Trump’s agent in 2010 and was briefly considered for a White House role in 2016. He’s known Linda McMahon, the WWE’s former chief executive and Trump’s current pick for education secretary, since he began representing the wrestling company around 2000.

Emanuel’s relationship with Musk also goes back years. Musk attended Emanuel’s wedding in St Tropez in 2022, and the two later vacationed together in Greece. Musk served on Endeavor’s board from 2021 to 2022, and the company was the first outside investor in Twitter after Musk bought the social-media platform, now known as X.

Emanuel’s stake in the OpenAI bid is unknown. Musk’s lawyers said in a court filing that the Tesla chief executive would drop his bid if OpenAI stopped its plans to restructure.

‘We’re unique’

Endeavor filed for an IPO in 2019, looking to go public at a $US7.6 billion valuation. It pulled the offering just hours before it was set to begin trading after tepid interest from investors. Two years later, Endeavor raised $US511 million in a second initial public offering attempt.

“We listened to everybody the last time,” Emanuel told Bloomberg Television after the 2021 IPO. “We weren’t getting the economics we thought we deserved. We’re unique. There’s nobody else that sits in all the places we sit on a global scale.”

In 2023, Endeavor acquired WWE for $US9.3 billion, merging it and UFC into TKO Group, a publicly traded company in which Endeavor owns a majority stake. TKO’s share price has climbed more than 70 per cent since its public listing.

Emanuel has a roughly 4 per cent economic stake in the business, held directly, through personal trusts and via a series of holding companies that he co-manages with his business partner Patrick Whitesell, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index.

Emanuel’s investment in UFC has paid off handsomely.Credit: Getty Images

Emanuel made headlines in 2022 when Endeavor disclosed that his prior year’s pay package had exceeded $US308 million, mostly in the form of stock awards tied to the company’s IPO, one of the highest single-year compensation packages for a public company executive that year. Emanuel also earned $US165 million in cash in 2017 when Endeavor bought back some of his shares before its public offering, according to a 2019 filing.

Endeavor agreed to be taken private last April by its majority shareholder, Silver Lake, a private equity firm headed by investor Egon Durban. The deal valued the company’s equity at about $US13 billion — a 55 per cent premium over the share price at the time.

When the deal was announced, the companies expected it to close in the first quarter of this year. Since then, Endeavor’s shares have climbed 29 per cent from the offering price, and its institutional shareholders could be heading to court to seek a better deal, according to a Barron’s report. Under the terms of the buyout, Emanuel has the option to roll over a portion of his equity in Endeavor into a stake in the private company, meaning those shares are not subject to the proposed $US27.50 a share buyout price.

Bloomberg’s valuation of Emanuel’s fortune doesn’t take into account assets including a reported early-stage investment in Uber and a founding stake in merchant bank the Raine Group, both of which could add to Emanuel’s net worth significantly.

Bloomberg

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