Al Gore now 'Romney-rich': Enough to make him happy?
Al Gore is almost as rich as Mitt Romney, according to a new in-depth of his wealth. He鈥檚 got a fortune just short of $200 million, as opposed to the $250 million net worth of the Republican the 2012 Obama campaign framed as an out-of-touch plutocrat.
Much of Mr. Gore鈥檚 wealth stems from the January sale of Current TV, which he co-founded, to the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera media empire. Gore netted about $70 million from his Current stake, estimates Bloomberg. That same month the ex-VP and almost-president of the United States also raked in about $30 million from sales of Apple stock. He鈥檚 on Apple鈥檚 board of directors.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 a pretty good January for a guy who couldn鈥檛 yet call himself a multimillionaire when he briefly slipped from public life after his bitterly contested presidential election loss to George W. Bush in late 2000,鈥� write Bloomberg鈥檚 Ken Wells and Ari Levy.
Gore still has $45 million worth of Apple stock he has not sold. He鈥檚 a co-founder of an investment firm, Generation Investment Management, that鈥檚 done quite well. He鈥檚 a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Then there are those best-selling books about environmental threats as well as speeches that earn him around $175,000 a pop.
Is this unseemly? After all, Gore railed against climate change, and now has a Tennessee mansion so big it uses 20 times more electricity than the average US household. He鈥檚 promoted green energy, yet made his biggest payday from selling his under-performing cable firm to petro-dollar interests.
It鈥檚 a turnabout that commentators on both the left and the right have not let pass. Jon Stewart lampooned the sale of Current on the 鈥�Daily Show;鈥� right-leaning blogs skewered Gore as a hypocrite.
鈥淢r. Green is sure rolling in the green now,鈥� wrote on RedState.
But losing presidential candidates don鈥檛 take a vow of poverty. Gore had to do something, and throwing himself into making money appears to be his method of coping with the shock of winning the popular vote yet losing the presidency.
鈥淚deological consistency has never been one of Al Gore鈥檚 hobgoblins, for better or worse. And one benefit of having endured what Gore has endured is that he has a very thick skin,鈥� writes Steve Fishman in a of Clinton鈥檚 Veep in New York Magazine.
The better question to ask might be if all this money has truly made Gore happy. That鈥檚 the impression one gets from reading Fishman鈥檚 piece, which includes an interview with Gore at his (virtually empty) Nashville mansion.
Fishman portrays Gore as the 鈥渦ltimate Davos man,鈥� meaning the avatar of someone who is well-compensated for traveling the world to exchange ideas for saving it at posh resorts.
Gore鈥檚 books such as 鈥淎n Inconvenient Truth鈥� are apocalyptic. The word 鈥渃heery鈥� does not come to hand when describing the man himself.
鈥淲herever Al Gore is, it鈥檚 hard not to get the sense that there are dark clouds lurking,鈥� writes Fishman.
Still, Gore鈥檚 flood of cash may cushion the blow of being the Almost President, writes Dashiell Bennett at the Atlantic Wire.
Gore did not invent the Internet, but it turns out he鈥檚 made a lot of money off it, writes Bennett 鈥� 鈥渕oney that he almost certainly would have missed out on had a few more hanging chads gone his way.鈥�
