Ron Baron (Baron Capital)

Ron Baron
Born	23 May 1943 (Forbes)
Nationality	American
Residence	New York (Forbes)
Occupation	Investor; fund manager
Known for	Founder of Baron Capital; early investor in Tesla and SpaceX
Education	Bucknell University (BA, chemistry)

American investor; founder and chief executive of the fund manager Baron Capital

Ron Baron (born 23 May 1943) is an American investor who founded the fund manager Baron Capital (Baron Funds) in 1982 and runs it as chief executive.^[1]^[2] He is best known for large, long-held bets on Elon Musk's companies Tesla and SpaceX.^[2]^[3] On 11 November 2026 the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list ranked Baron 332nd in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$10.7 billion; Forbes lists the source of wealth as money management.^[2]^[4] In the annual World's Billionaires list published in 2026, Forbes had ranked Baron 461st, at US$7.9 billion.^[5]

Early life and career

Baron grew up in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and worked several part-time jobs to put himself through school.^[6] Forbes says his father was an engineer and his mother a purchasing agent for the federal government, and that he paid for college by working as a cabana boy, lifeguard, water-ski instructor and ice cream van driver. He wanted to be a doctor but did not get into medical school.^[2] He took a BA in chemistry at Bucknell University and was a teaching fellow in biochemistry at Georgetown University. He then worked as a patent examiner at the US Patent Office while attending George Washington University Law School, before becoming an institutional securities analyst at several brokerage firms.^[1] Forbes dates his start as a securities analyst to 1970.^[2]

Baron Capital

Baron founded his firm in 1982.^[1] The firm says it began with three employees and US$100,000 in capital, and that its assets under management grew from US$100 million in 1992 to US$62.9 billion at 30 September 2026.^[6] Forbes describes him as a buy-and-hold investor and says the flagship Baron Growth fund has annual turnover of less than 1.5% and net assets of about US$4 billion.^[2] His sons David and Michael are co-presidents of the firm.^[1]

Tesla and SpaceX

CNBC reported that Baron Capital first invested US$400 million in Tesla between 2014 and 2016. At the end of 2024 Tesla made up 12% of the firm's combined portfolio, after the firm had trimmed the holding in the second quarter of that year because it had grown too large.^[7] In November 2025 Baron told CNBC that he had sold about 30% of the funds' Tesla holding a few years earlier, after criticism from clients and the media about the concentration in one stock, but had not sold a single share personally. He said about 40% of his personal net worth was in Tesla, about 25% in SpaceX and about 35% in Baron mutual funds. He said he had made about US$8 billion from Tesla and did not expect to sell his Tesla or SpaceX shares in his lifetime.^[3] Forbes says he made billions by putting his investment profits into the two companies.^[2]

Property

Baron owns one of the largest estates in the Hamptons. Forbes says he assembled it between 2001 and 2009 at a total cost of over US$200 million.^[2] In May 2007 he paid US$103 million for 40 acres of oceanfront land on Further Lane in East Hampton, bought from Adelaide de Menil Carpenter, an heiress to the Schlumberger oil fortune. At the time it was a US record for a residential property.^[8]^[9] Haute Living reported that he had already bought 11 adjoining acres in 2005 for US$22 million.^[9]

Wealth history

Forbes has included this entry in its annual World's Billionaires list in 19 of the editions from 2001 to 2026 checked for this profile, starting with 2008. The table gives the rank and estimated net worth in each annual list, and, where applicable, the rank and estimate in the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans.^[5]^[2]

Forbes estimates by list year
Year	World's Billionaires rank	Net worth (US$ bn)	Forbes 400 rank	Forbes 400 net worth (US$ bn)
2007	–	–	317	1.5
2008	785	1.5	355	1.4
2009	701	1.0	296	1.3
2010	721	1.4	306	1.4
2011	879	1.4	293	1.5
2012	854	1.5	311	1.5
2013	931	1.6	327	1.7
2014	869	2.0	302	2.1
2015	894	2.1	307	2.2
2016	906	2.0	335	2.1
2017	939	2.2	359	2.2
2018	1103	2.2	354	2.3
2019	1057	2.2	355	2.4
2020	908	2.3	295	2.9
2021	638	4.5	240	4.6
2022	637	4.5	211	4.9
2023	534	5.0	215	5.1
2024	597	5.1	250	5.2
2025	535	6.5	224	6.5
2026	461	7.9	144	10.8

International and political links

This section uses the same ten headings for every profile in this series. Only specific, sourced actions are included; company-level and foundation-level actions are labelled as such. Where nothing was found, the entry reads "No documented involvement found in sources checked."