At a public appearance in 2019, Kanye West floated the idea of changing his name to “Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West” for a year, and – while the idea is still objectively ridiculous – there might actually be some legitimacy to the billionaire label, according to a new Forbes report.
Yesterday (April 24) the magazine officially declared that the rapper was worth over $1 billion – $1.3 billion is the specific estimate – having been offered “an authentic numeric look into Kanye, Inc.” by his team.
The biggest chunk of this comes from Kanye’s Yeezy label, which he’s previously compared to the likes of Apple and McDonald’s (ofc), and which he owns 100%, though it’s tied to collaborators Adidas for the foreseeable future.
Another chunk of his wealth reportedly comes from buildings and improvements, plus land such as his Wyoming ranches, where he shoots the occasional video and plans to set up his enigmatic Yeezy campus. More land is presumably reserved for his futuristic dome homes.
However, despite the evaluation of his massive – and, let’s be honest, completely unnecessary – fortune, Kanye still claims his wealth isn’t being given the credit it deserves.
In a text to Forbes, he offers a snarky correction: “It’s not a billion. It’s $3.3 billion since no one at Forbes knows how to count.” The magazine has responded by pointing towards the informal “Trump rule” it used for years: “take whatever the future president insisted he was worth, divide by three, and start honing from there.”
Given Kanye’s controversial praise of his and Trump’s shared “dragon energy” back in 2018, that seems like a pretty solid tactic.