Jordan Belfort Net Worth and Biography

Jordan Belfort is a businessman, investor, and motivational speaker who was once convicted over manipulation of the stock market. He spent 22 months in prison after pleading guilty to fraud and other crimes in relation to the stock market and running a boiler room. After his release in 2006, the former stockbroker published his memoir entitled “The Wolf of Wall Street’ in 2007, which was later converted into a film in 2013 under the same name starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Jordan Belfort Net Worth

Joran Beffort is worth $100 million as of the year 2020. We expect his salary and net worth to keep increasing year over year and we will update this page as soon as new information becomes available.

Jordan Belfort's Early Life and Education

Jordan Ross Belfort was born on July 9, 1962, in the Bronx borough of New York City to Jewish parents. Belfort was raised in his hometown, Bayside, Queens.

During his high school days until when he enrolled at college, Belfort and his childhood friend, Elliot Loewenstern earned $20,000 from selling Italian ice to people at the local beach. He later enrolled at American University, where he graduated with a degree in biology. Belfort had a passion for dentistry, he, therefore, used the money earned from his joint businesses with Loewenstern to enroll at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. He left after the dean of the school told him he wasn’t going to make much money as a dentist.

“The golden age of dentistry is over. If you’re here simply because you’re looking to make a lot of money, you’re in the wrong place,” he said.

Jordan Belfort's Net Worth began to shape up during his early career

Belfort took up a job as a meat and seafood salesman on Long Island, New York. In interviews, Belfort describes the business as a success which later grew to employ several workers and sold as much as 5,000 pounds (2,300 kilograms) of beef and fish weekly. The company soon reached an untimely end as Belfort filed for Bankruptcy at 25.

Following the failure of his business, a family friend helped him secure a job at L.F. Rothschild as a trainee stockbroker. His stay there was short-lived as he was laid off by the firm after it experienced a financial plunge connected to the Black Monday stock market crash in 1987.

How Jodan Belfort took over Stratton Oakmont

With the little understanding he had of the stock market, Belfort founded Stratton Oakmont, a franchise of Stratton Securities before he eventually bought out the original owners. Stratton Oakmont was a boiler room that marketed and sold penny stocks and defrauded investors with the “pump and dump” stock sales type.

Stratton Oakmont generated much income for Belfort, and at a point, the company employed more than 1,000 stock brokers. Belfort spent most of his time living a lavish lifestyle and doing drugs, especially methaqualone. The company was eventually involved in stock issues which totaled more than $1 billion. Much pressure was put on Stratton by law enforcement officials all through the time the company functioned. The notoriety of the company inspired the 2000 film ‘Boiler Room’ and later ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ (2013).

Why Jordan Belfort went Jail

In December 1996, the National Association of Securities Dealers (now the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) expelled Stratton, thereby, putting the company out of business. Belfort was later indicted for money laundering and securities fraud in 1999.

Belfort was sentenced to four-year imprisonment of which he served only 22 months at the Taft Correctional Institution, California, in exchange for a plea deal with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to reveal the identities of the other investors involved in the pump and dump scams. Belfort was instructed to pay back the $110.4 million of the $200 million he stole from over 1,500 stock buyers. To date, he has barely paid back a quarter of the total amount.

Global Motivation, Inc. Launched while Jordan Belfort was in jail

It was while he served his time in jail that he got the motivation from a cellmate, Tommy Chong, to write about his experiences as a stockbroker. This launched Belfort into his new career path of becoming a motivational speaker.

At a motivational speaking engagement, he had at Dubai, on May 19, 2014, he stated:

“I got greedy… Greed is not good. Ambition is good, passion is good. Passion prospers. My goal is to give more than I get, that’s a sustainable form of success… Ninety-five percent of the business was legitimate. It was all brokerage firm issues. It was all legitimate nothing to do with liquidating stocks.”

In contrast to what Belfort describes Stratton as, federal prosecutors and SEC officials familiar with the case said “Stratton Oakmont was not a real Wall Street firm, either literally or figuratively.”

Following his release from prison, Belfort set out for a new career path and reinvented himself as a motivational speaker. He started a new motivational company, Global Motivation Inc., a platform he created for himself to share his experiences as a former stockbroker, the lessons he learned, and the importance of business ethics. Booking a speaking engagement with Belfort runs between the range of $30,000 to $75,000. Booking a seminar with him goes as high as $80,000 or more.

His Personal Life

Belfort married his first wife, Denise Lombardo in 1985 and got divorced in 1991, during his time at Stratton Oakmont. Following his divorce in 1991, Belfort married British-born model Nadine Caridi in the same year. Together, they have two children. The couple divorced in 2005 in the ground of domestic violence which was linked to Belfort’s drug addiction and infidelity. In 2008, Belfort married Anne Belfort.

Belfort bought a luxury yacht, Nadine which was built for the famous designer, Coco Chanel in 1961. He renamed the yacht after his second wife, Caridi. In 1996, the ship sank off the coast of Sardinia, and all who were aboard the yacht were later recused by the Italian Navy’s Special Forces.