What is Betsy DeVos's net worth?
Betsy DeVos is an American politician and philanthropist who has a net worth of $2 billion. Betsy DeVos served as the US secretary of education from 2017 to 2021. Before that, she served as the chair of the Michigan Republican Party for two separate terms, and served on the boards of various Christian and conservative organizations. During her tenure as US secretary of education, DeVos garnered heavy criticism for her advocacy of school choice, school voucher programs, and charter schools.
Betsy's wealth comes from two sources.
#1) Her father Edgar Prince founded an automotive parts company that eventually grew into a multi-billion-dollar empire. Edgar patented a simple, yet innovative, sun visor with a built-in mirror for vehicles. That simple patent paid the DeVos family a royalty every time a car was sold with one. At their peak in the mid 1990s, The Prince Company manufactured 20,000 sun visors every day. In 1996, the family sold the business to Johnson Controls for $1.3 billion in cash. Betsy's brother Erik Prince is the founder of private military contracting company, Blackwater USA.
#2) Betsy is married to Dick DeVos, whose father Richard founded Amway which eventually grew into a multi-billion-dollar empire. Richard DeVos Sr. had a net worth of $6 billion at the time of his death in 2018.
Early Life and Education
Betsy DeVos was born as Elisabeth Prince on January 8, 1958 in Holland, Michigan as the eldest of four children of Elsa and billionaire industrialist Edgar, who founded the car parts supplier Prince Corporation. One of her siblings, Erik, went on to found the private military services contractor Blackwater.
Growing up, DeVos was a member of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. She was educated at Holland Christian High School, and then at Calvin College, from which she graduated in 1979 with a BA in business economics. During her college years, DeVos volunteered for Gerald Ford's presidential campaign.
Michigan Republican Party
In 1982, DeVos joined the Michigan Republican Party. Four years later, she was elected to her first of 16 consecutive terms as a local precinct delegate for the Party. In 1992, DeVos became a Republican National Committeewoman for Michigan, a position she held until 1997. Meanwhile, from 1996 to 2000, she served as the chair of the Michigan Republican Party; she would serve as chair again from 2003 to 2005.
Nomination for US Secretary of Education
Despite having opposed Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election, DeVos was nominated by Trump to be the next secretary of education. Her nomination was heavily criticized by teachers unions and other parties due to her support of school choice and charter schools, among other anti-public education systems. During her heated confirmation hearing, DeVos elicited further derision for suggesting that guns should be used in schools to ward away grizzly bears. In February of 2017, she was confirmed by the Senate with a 51-50 margin, leading vice president Mike Pence to break the tie in her favor.
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Tenure as US Secretary of Education
During her tenure as secretary of education, DeVos garnered major pushback for her anti-intellectualism and anti-public education policies. She continued to support school choice, school voucher programs, and charter schools, and rolled back several Obama administration policy memos designed to protect student loan borrowers from predatory practices. For the latter move, DeVos was sued by 19 states and the District of Columbia; she ultimately lost the lawsuit. She went on to attract further controversy in 2020 when, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she directed millions of dollars of relief funds that were intended for public schools to private and religious schools. Moreover, DeVos pushed for schools to reopen even as COVID cases were surging around the country.
The day after the attack on the US Capitol in January of 2021, DeVos resigned from her position as secretary of education. In her resignation letter, she wrote to Trump that "there is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation." DeVos's resignation officially took effect on January 8, which was 12 days before her term would have come to an end with the inauguration of Joe Biden as US president. Upon her ignominious departure, which came in lieu of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office, DeVos was called by Senator Elizabeth Warren the country's worst-ever secretary of education.
Business Career
On the business side of things, DeVos chairs the Windquest Group, a privately held operating group she co-founded with her husband in 1989. She and her husband are also chief investors in, and board members of, the medical group Neurocore, which has been denounced for using unapproved medical devices and deceptive marketing.
Philanthropy and Advocacy
As a philanthropist, DeVos launched the faith-based Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation with her husband in 1989. The Foundation has donated to hospitals, arts organizations, Christian schools, evangelical missions, and conservative think tanks, among other groups and causes.
DeVos has served on the boards of various organizations, including the Action Institute, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, the American Education Reform Council, and the American Federation for Children. She is a major proponent of the Detroit charter school system.
Personal Life
DeVos married her husband Dick in 1979. A multi-billionaire heir to the Amway fortune, Dick ran Amway's parent company Alticor from 1993 to 2002. In 2006, he was the Republican nominee for governor of Michigan. Betsy and Dick have four grown children: Rick, Elissa, Andrea, and Ryan. Rick works as a consultant for his parents' Windquest Group, and is the founder of the ArtPrize festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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