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If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?

Steven Hale
6 min readJan 13, 2020

Wealth and the Betsy DeVos Educational Agenda, Part 1a

Detroit Yacht Club, Bell Isle, 1890) Photo: Library of Congress

Where does Betsy DeVos’s wealth come from and how rich is she?

Betsy Prince DeVos and her three siblings (including Erik Prince — Blackwater founder, alleged facilitator between Moscow and the Trump campaign, and recently an apparently volunteer citizen diplomat to Venezuela) grew up rich, thanks to their father’s inventions and auto parts business, Prince Corporation, which was sold to Johnson Controls Inc. for $1.35 billion in 1996 (New York Times, cited by Business Insider).

DeVos’s husband, Dick DeVos, grew up even richer, as the son of Richard DeVos Sr., one of the two founders of the multi-level marketing company Amway. Part-ownership of Amway and the Orlando Magic accounts for most of Dick and Betsy’s estimated $2 billion net worth. Excluding Amway and the Magic, Betsy DeVos’s holdings may be worth at least $335 million (Forbes).

The DeVoses are in good company: of the Forbes 400 richest Americans, 33% inherited “their full fortune [or inherited] a smaller fortune they grew.” (Evonics)

Annual income today

Forbes reported that Dick and Betsy Devos made at least $45 million in 2018 from their holdings and investments but apparently not…

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Steven Hale
Steven Hale

Written by Steven Hale

Music: Discovering the lost and forgotten. Politics: Exposing injustice. Screenwriting: Emotional storytelling.

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