Gilbert is the founder and majority owner of Rocket Companies, a residential mortgage lender in the US. The Detroit-based company closed $133 billion of mortgage volume in 2022. He's invested in downtown Detroit real estate and is the majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, a National Basketball Association franchise.
The majority of Gilbert's fortune is derived from Rocket Companies, a home mortgage lender in the US. Gilbert owns about 70% of the company, based on its 2023 proxy statement and a 2015 bond prospectus that disclosed he owned 77% of the holding company Rock Holdings. Rocket Mortgage closed $133 billion in mortgage volume in 2022, according to its website.
Through Rock Ventures, Gilbert has bought more than 100 properties in Detroit and Cleveland, according to a February 2017 press release. Rock Ventures and its affiliates have invested more than $3.5 billion in properties in these cities. The properties are valued using the net property value for those properties, according to data compiled by researcher RCA, and adjusted to reflect the Bloomberg US Real Estate price return index. Gilbert is credited with the entire company. The billionaire also owns 72% of the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA team that's valued based on a December 2023 report by valuation consultants Sportico.
Other assets including his gaming arm are included in his cash balance, which accounts for asset sales and the cost of acquiring assets such as the Cavaliers, as well as about $1.8 billion in personal proceeds from the sale of Rocket Companies shares through the IPO.
A spokesman for Rocket Companies didn't respond to a request for comment on Gilbert's net worth in November 2021.
Dan Gilbert was born in a Detroit suburb on Jan. 17, 1962, the son of a bar owner. He studied at Michigan State University and completed his law degree at Wayne State University. He delivered pizzas and used his earnings to set up lender Rock Financial in 1985, according to the company's 1998 prospectus. A year later he started Rockloans.com, an online direct mortgage lender.
Rock Financial was bought by software maker Intuit for $370 million in 1999, and was renamed Quicken Loans. Three years later, Gilbert bought back the company, which thrived following Lehman Brothers' collapse in 2008, having avoided entering the subprime mortgage market. The billionaire moved the company's headquarters to downtown Detroit in August 2010, and through closely held investment company Rock Ventures started to buy buildings in the city center.
Gilbert took the company public again in August 2020 as Rocket Companies, Inc. At the time of the IPO, the company had a valuation of about $35 billion and was the country's largest retail mortgage originator.
Gilbert, who bought a 72 percent stake in NBA franchise Cleveland Cavaliers in 2005, has also expanded into casinos, buying Detroit's Greektown Casino in April 2013. He also owns Rock Ohio Caesars, which owns resorts and racetracks in Ohio and Kentucky.
The billionaire lives on the outskirts of Detroit and has five children with wife Jennifer. He attracted national attention with a letter accusing departing Cavaliers player LeBron James of betrayal in 2010. The pair reconciled in July 2014, with James returning to Cleveland for the 2014/2015 season.
Gilbert was hospitalized after suffering a stroke in May 2019.