Phil Knight & family
Source of wealth: Nike
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Biography
Phil Knight, cofounder of shoe giant Nike, retired as chairman in 2016 after 52 years at the company.
Knight ran track at the University of Oregon and created Nike shoes with his former track coach, Bill Bowerman.
In 1964, they each put up $500 to start Blue Ribbon Sports. Knight & family still own 21% of the $46 billion (fiscal 2025 revenue) company now known as Nike.
Knight and his wife Penny have given $4 billion to charity so far--mainly through their Knight Foundation. They rank among America's top philanthropists.
The Knights have pledged over $500 million in donations to each of the University of Oregon and Stanford University, Phil's alma maters.
The couple pledged $400 million to help rebuild Portland, Oregon's historically Black Albina neighborhood in 2023.
In August 2025, the Knights pledged another $2 billion to Oregon Health & Science University's Knight Cancer Institute.
Perspective on their fortune
Gold
Everyday luxury
A Phil Knight & family's fortune is equivalent to 173 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
Phil Knight & family could buy 46,053,825 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 8 trucks to transport them, But we can be almost certain that Phil Knight & family will have enough left over to pay for the gas for those trucks.
Health
The price of life
Let's compare Phil Knight & family's fortune with the healthcare spending of a huge country
Phil Knight & family could fund the entire healthcare system of DR Congo with a population of over 105,800,000 of inhabitants for approximately 11.5 years.
But even if we compare their fortune to that of a rich country
At the other extreme, Phil Knight & family could cover the health expenditure of Luxembourg, considered the world's most heavily invested health system, for 5.1 years
Education
Buying the future
Lowest education spending
Phil Knight & family 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 7.5 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, Phil Knight & family could pay for it in full for 10.2 years.
Research
The monopoly of progress
Lowest research spending
Phil Knight & family 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 43.1 years.
Highest research spending
But even if we compare the total wealth of Phil Knight & family 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 1.0 years.
Financial Assets
Monthly wealth history
Fortune comparison
Historical data not available for comparison