Jay Y. Lee
Source of wealth: Samsung
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Biography
Jay Y. Lee is the executive chairman of Samsung Electronics and leader of the country's biggest conglomerate. He was appointed to the role in 2022, which had been left vacant since the death of his father in 2020.
In 2017, he was jailed for bribing a confidante of former President Park Geun-hye, but was released in 2018. In 2021, through a retrial, he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, and then received a presidential pardon in 2022.
In 2024, Lee was acquitted of stock manipulation charges related to a 2015 merger between two Samsung affiliates that prosecutors said helped Lee cement control of the Samsung conglomerate.
Lee and his family are in the process of paying 12 trillion won (about $8.5 billion) in inheritance taxes following the 2020 death of patriarch Lee Kun-hee.
Perspective on their fortune
Gold
Everyday luxury
A Jay Y. Lee's fortune is equivalent to 220 of gold, but this may be difficult to value, as we don't usually have a handful of gold bars in our piggy bank.
A standard gold ring typically weighs between 4 and 7 grams. Let's say this one weighs 5 grams. It's usually 18k gold.
Based on today's gold price (not taking into account the jeweler's fee, shipping, or anything else), that gold ring would be worth $556.3
Jay Y. Lee could buy 58,650,571 gold rings. That's a lot of fingers and a lot of gifts!!
And if the number of rings is difficult to visualize, all these rings would need 10 trucks to transport them, But we can be almost certain that Jay Y. Lee will have enough left over to pay for the gas for those trucks.
Health
The price of life
Let's compare Jay Y. Lee's fortune with the healthcare spending of a huge country
Jay Y. Lee could fund the entire healthcare system of DR Congo with a population of over 105,800,000 of inhabitants for approximately 14.7 years.
But even if we compare their fortune to that of a rich country
At the other extreme, Jay Y. Lee could cover the health expenditure of Luxembourg, considered the world's most heavily invested health system, for 6.5 years
Education
Buying the future
Lowest education spending
Jay Y. Lee could assume the entire cost of the education system of Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with more than 243,000,000 inhabitants for 9.6 years.
Highest education spending
But not only could he assume the cost of a poor country, Luxembourg is considered the country with the highest per capita investment in education in the world, Jay Y. Lee could pay for it in full for 13.1 years.
Research
The monopoly of progress
Lowest research spending
Jay Y. Lee could fully fund the state research budget of Pakistan, the fifth most populous country in the world with more than 260,000,000 of inhabitants, for 54.9 years.
Highest research spending
But even if we compare the total wealth of Jay Y. Lee with Israel, the country that currently invests the most per capita in research in the world, it could assume the total cost of the system for 1.2 years.
Financial Assets
Monthly wealth history
Fortune comparison
Historical data not available for comparison