Lee is the chairman of Samsung Electronics, a manufacturer of consumer and industrial electronic equipment. The South Korean company had a revenue of $235 billion in 2022. Lee was sentenced to two and a half years in prison over bribery charges in January 2021 and won a presidential pardon in August 2022.
The majority of Lee's fortune is derived from his stake in Samsung Electronics, a manufacturer of consumer and industrial electronic equipment. He holds 2% of the shares, according to a January 2024 filing.
Lee also owns an 18% stake in Samsung C&T, the publicly traded entity that was created following the September 2015 merger of Cheil Industries, the de facto holding company of the Samsung group, and its construction and trading arm.
Other public holdings include 10% of Samsung Life Insurance, 9% of Samsung SDS, a publicly traded information technology services provider, 2% of Samsung Engineering, and less than 1% of Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, according to company filings.
This analysis previously included shares held by the late Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee who died in October 2020. The fortune was split between heirs on May 5, 2021 and this led to a decrease in the calculation of about $13 billion.
The family has also pledged to donate 1 trillion won ($899 million) for social causes.
The value of his cash investments is based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, market performance and taxes.
A Samsung Electronics spokeswoman declined to comment on Lee's net worth.
Lee Jae-Yong is the son of Lee Kun-Hee, who transformed his father's fish exporter into Samsung Group, South Korea's largest conglomerate. The younger Lee studied in Seoul before completing his MBA at Tokyo's Keoi University and joining Samsung Electronics in 1991.
Lee helped oversee the unit's rise into the world's biggest maker of smartphones, accumulating a one-quarter stake in closely held Chiel Industries. Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries have been merged since September 2015. The all-stock merger makes Lee the biggest shareholder with an approximate 16.5 percent stake.
His father stepped down as chairman of Samsung after being convicted of tax evasion and breach of trust in 2008, and was indicted for causing losses at Samsung designed to help transfer control of group units to his son. He returned to head the group in 2010 after receiving a presidential pardon. Two years later, Lee's uncle and aunt sued his father to obtain $3.7 billion in Samsung Life and Samsung Electronics stock that they said they were entitled to since their father's death. The case was dismissed in February 2013.
Lee, who divorced in 2009, was made vice chairman of Samsung Electronics in 2012. He's led the company since his father suffered a heart attack in May 2014.
He was convicted in August 2017 and sentenced to five years in jail for crimes including bribery and embezzlement. Lee was accused of providing bribes to former South Korean President, Park Geun-hye. An appeals court allowed him to leave prison in February 2018 when it suspended and reduced his sentence.
Lee was sentenced to two and a half years in prison over bribery charges in January 2021 and won a presidential pardon in August 2022.
He became the chairman of Samsung Electronics in October 2022.