The richest person who dropped out of school is often cited as Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, who dropped out of college twice, with a net worth once eclipsing Elon Musk's, and is now worth billions, though the title can shift as fortunes change and some like Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) are famous dropouts who also achieved immense wealth, consistently ranking among the richest globally.
Bill Gates: $106 billion (£78.5bn)
The co-founder of the world's largest software company, Bill Gates left Harvard University to focus on building his Microsoft empire. Today, he's worth a mammoth $106 billion (£78.5bn) and previously held the title of world's richest person for 13 consecutive years.
Some billionaires who didn't go to college include Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg, who are all from the tech industry. Keep in mind that billionaire college dropouts are rare, and most billionaires are still more likely to have a degree than the average person.
High school dropouts
He attended Eli Whitney High School and George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School, both in Brooklyn, and then Trenton Central High School in Trenton, New Jersey. He did not graduate, dropping out during his sophomore year at Trenton Central High School.
Even though the highly decorated singer and songwriter never received her college diploma, New York University honored her with a doctorate in fine arts in 2022. Young stardom made pursuing college a distant dream for Taylor Swift, but she graduated high school even while on tour for her first album.
Okayplayer Icecartel Prestige Hong Kong Yahoo Jay-Z is significantly richer than P. Diddy, consistently ranking as the wealthiest hip-hop artist with a net worth estimated around $2.5 billion, while Diddy's fortune is generally placed around $1 billion or less, making Jay-Z the clear leader among rap moguls due to diverse ventures in spirits (Armand de Brignac, D'Ussé), tech (TIDAL), and entertainment (Roc Nation).
Born into a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk emigrated in 1989 to Canada; he has Canadian citizenship since his mother was born there. He received bachelor's degrees in 1997 from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, United States, before moving to California to pursue business ventures.
Richard Branson: The founder of Virgin Group, a conglomerate of more than 400 companies, dropped out of high school at age 16 and never attended college. 2. Steve Jobs: The co-founder of Apple Inc. dropped out of college after just one semester, but went on to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in history.
Though she initially planned to finish high school, she ultimately dropped out at age 16 to pursue a music career.
Ritesh Agarwal – Founder & CEO, OYO
Ritesh Agarwal dropped out of college at a very young age to pursue entrepreneurship. With a strong interest in technology and hospitality, he started experimenting with business ideas early. He founded OYO, which went on to become one of the world's largest hospitality chains.
Harvard: Billionaire Central
Harvard has produced 125 billionaires in total, with a combined estimated wealth of almost $600 billion. The university tops our list, even without counting names like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, who studied there but never completed their degrees.
Although iconic founders like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg famously didn't finish college, multiple studies show that the vast majority of successful startups had founders with bachelor's or graduate degrees.
Rockefeller disappeared during an expedition in the Asmat region of southwestern Dutch New Guinea, which is now a part of the Indonesian province of South Papua, with conflicting views of his fate. Rockefeller's twin sister wrote in a 2012 memoir that she believes her brother drowned.
There are many examples of geniuses who failed school or did not attend at all. For instance, Thomas Edison, one of the most prolific inventors to walk this earth, only had a few months of formal schooling. Similarly, Albert Einstein immersed himself in self-study, reading extensively about mathematics and physics.
2) Steve Jobs
Having found the required classes on his schedule too boring to bear, Jobs dropped out of Reed College just six months into his freshman year so he could drop in on the classes that he was actually interested in — like Shakespeare, dance, and calligraphy.
These celebrities and entrepreneurs endured hardship before they hit the big time. Francois Pinault, who is now worth $40 billion, was teased in school for being poor. Oprah Winfrey was born into a poor Mississippi family in 1954, but she's now worth $2.5 billion.
Evan Thomas Spiegel (born June 4, 1990) is an American and French businessman, co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc. Spiegel was the youngest billionaire in the world in 2015. As of August 2025, he had a personal net worth of $2.5 billion according to Forbes. Snap Inc.
As opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War mounted at college campuses, UPenn was largely insulated. Though Trump personally opposed the war, he did not participate in protests. Trump graduated from the Wharton School in May 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in economics.
Elon Musk's "1-Hour Rule" (often called the 5-Hour Rule) is about dedicating at least one focused hour each weekday (five hours a week) to deliberate learning, reading, or deep thinking, without distractions, to foster continuous growth and problem-solving, a practice also attributed to leaders like Bill Gates. This isn't about working harder but thinking deeper, allowing for crucial reflection amidst constant output, with Musk's own experience highlighting how focused, distraction-free time yields better results than hours of unfocused work.
He hasn't earned those yet. To get all of the stock, he has to make Tesla worth roughly $8.5 trillion, which would earn Musk about $1 trillion. He will likely be a trillionaire before he earns any of that stock. All it would take is a successful SpaceX IPO, which Musk seemed to endorse on X in December.
Yes, Taylor Swift is currently estimated to be richer than Beyoncé, with Forbes reporting Swift's net worth at approximately $1.6 billion in late 2024/early 2025, largely from her Eras Tour and music catalog, while Beyoncé's net worth is estimated around $700-$800 million, though she recently crossed the billionaire threshold. Swift became the first musician to reach billionaire status solely from her music and performances, surpassing Beyoncé's wealth.