How Did Andrew Cuomo Get So Rich?
In 2017, Andrew Cuomo signed into law a program that would provide tuition-free college at New York's public universities for families making under $125,000 per year. In a speech hailing the legislation, he tied its support for middle-class families to his own life story. 'When you grow up in Queens,' he told the crowd, 'you grow up middle class. You grow up part of a working family. We're not rich in Queens, but that's okay.'
At the time, the former cabinet secretary, New York attorney general and son of a former New York governor had already departed the middle class. Most of his money, per his financial disclosures filed at the time, sat in a blind trust with between $1.75 million and $2 million in it—a healthy sum, though not shocking for a 59-year-old lawyer at the head of the fourth-largest state in the country.
Today, Forbes estimates Cuomo is worth about $10 million, a roughly five-fold gain in less than a decade. Not bad for a politician who resigned in scandal just under four years ago. During the height of his pandemic popularity, he signed a $5.2 million book deal, much of which he got upfront—an incredible sum for a governor. Out of office, he returned to a private (and lucrative) legal practice in 2022. Then, two years later, Cuomo—who shut down one of New York's nuclear power plants as governor—joined the advisory board of a nuclear company, earning him stock options worth over $4 million as of Friday's market close.
Unlike most politicians Forbes tracks, the likely frontrunner to be New York City's next mayor owns no real estate, meaning he's missed out on the strong property market of the last decade. Instead, he forks over $8,000 monthly to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Midtown Manhattan.
C uomo was born in Queens to Mario, a lawyer, and Matilda, a teacher, in 1957. Around the time he graduated high school, his father entered politics, becoming New York's secretary of state in 1975, then lieutenant governor in 1978. After graduating from Fordham University in 1979, the younger Cuomo went to Albany Law School, where he earned his J.D. in 1982—the same year his father became governor.
Andrew Cuomo spent a year as a gubernatorial aide, taking a $1 annual salary. Then he pivoted to his own legal career. After a year as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, he went into private practice in 1985 and founded a nonprofit called Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged to support homeless people on the side. By 1988, he'd left to run HELP, which today says it has assisted over 500,000 people since its founding.
In 1990, Cuomo married Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Robert Kennedy and sister of now-health secretary RFK Jr. 'The union of the nation's two most renowned liberal Democratic clans—dubbed 'Cuomolot' by the tabloids—has been taken as a signal,' Maureen Dowd reported from the wedding for The New York Times , 'that the ambitious 32-year-old Andrew, his father's closest adviser and the president of HELP, a New York program to build housing for the homeless, is planning a very political future.'
The marriage of Kerry Kennedy and Andrew Cuomo brought together two of America's best known political families. Bettmann Archive
The prediction proved prescient. In 1991, Cuomo headed up the city's Commission on the Homeless. That experience catapulted him into the federal government, where he was appointed as an assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development after Democrats took back the White House in 1992. President Clinton elevated him to HUD secretary in 1997 after winning a second term, giving Cuomo a $150,000 salary and control of a $26 billion budget by the end of his term.
After Republicans regained control in Washington in 2001, Cuomo returned to New York and ran for governor for the first time. He dropped out before the Democratic primary. Adding to his troubles, Kennedy, who reportedly had long been frustrated with her husband's focus on politics over her family—they had three daughters—asked for a divorce the day after the primary. Cuomo retreated to private practice for several years, making big bucks—reportedly, $289,000 in 2003 and $819,000 in 2005 while he worked at a real estate company. He also wrote his first book, 'Crossroads: The Future of American Politics,' in 2003. It flopped, too, selling just 161 print copies, according to data from Circana Bookscan, an industry data service.
He rebounded by running for attorney general in 2006, defeating Jeanine Pirro, a former judge and district attorney (and, later, a Fox News host) who Donald Trump recently appointed as D.C.'s U.S. Attorney. In 2010, Cuomo ran for governor again and won, earning him a raise from $152,000 to $179,000.
Cuomo's finances were stable as New York's executive. In 2012, the earliest year for which disclosures are available, his only major asset other than his federal pension was his blind trust with a value between $1.75 million and $2 million. It stayed that way even as he wrote his second book, which earned him several hundred thousand dollars from advances and royalties in 2013, 2014 and 2016. 'All Things Possible' sold about 4,100 print copies, according to Circana Bookscan data.
In 2019, as he kicked off his third term, he got a raise to $200,000. Cuomo's wealth jumped far more than that—his blind trust was worth $4.75 million to $5 million at the end of the year—though it's not entirely clear where he got the money. In July 2020, during the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, he signed a $5.2 million book deal, coming out the winner in a bidding war between publishing companies. He published his third book, 'American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic' in October that year. By the end of 2020, his blind trust sat at between $7.5 and $7.75 million.
Cuomo didn't keep the book money from his first installment of $3.1 million: Virtually all of it went to sky-high Empire State taxes, a $500,000 donation to United Way of New York and the creation of a trust fund for his daughters, Politico reports, citing tax returns Cuomo released in 2021. He received another $2.1 million split into two installments in 2021 and 2022. A spokesperson didn't respond to a list of questions about the valuation, the blind trust or whether he kept the remaining book money. (By the time he received the later payments, he was no longer governor and didn't have to file financial disclosures.)
After two additional years of raises approved by the state legislature—his salary rose to $225,000 in 2020 and $250,000 in 2021—he was the highest paid governor in the country. It was short lived, though: Cuomo resigned in August 2021 amid accusations of sexual misconduct, ethical lapses and mismanagement during the pandemic.
During the pandemic, Cuomo attempted to draw a contrast between himself and then-president Donald Trump. AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
Out of power, Cuomo opened a legal consulting outfit in April 2022. His clients remain mostly unknown—Bloomberg reported that one was a crypto exchange that pleaded guilty to illegal operations in the United States. He also reportedly joined a team of lawyers defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court.
At any rate, whoever hired him paid him handsomely, including over $500,000 in 2024, according to the disclosures he filed as a mayoral candidate. His most lucrative gig was advising a 'pre-revenue' company called NANO Nuclear that is seeking to develop nuclear microreactors, smaller versions of nuclear reactors that advocates hope could make it cheaper and easier to deploy fission power. In March of 2024, Cuomo was granted 125,000 options allowing him to purchase stock for $3.00 per share between now and 2027. After its IPO on the Nasdaq in May, the stock has soared; as of Friday's close at over $37, Cuomo's options are worth more than $4 million.
The ethical issues surrounding his resignation from the governor's mansion are still weighing on him. A state ethics commission found in 2021 that Cuomo used state resources to help him write his latest book, 'American Crisis,' and tried to claw back the full $5.2 million book advance as punishment. The commission was replaced by New York's Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, and Cuomo challenged the constitutionality of the body in court, but lost on appeal in February. Assuming the new commission assesses a similar punishment, Cuomo could have to return a chunk of the cash he got for a book that, per Circana Bookscan data, has only sold about 47,000 copies. The publisher reportedly stopped promoting it after separate allegations that Cuomo had mishandled Covid-19 patients in nursing homes during the pandemic, leading to more deaths from the virus. It never printed a paperback edition.
Having solidified his finances for now, the former governor's path out of the political wilderness lies in winning the Democratic primary on Tuesday, June 24—though he may run on a different party's line if he loses, setting up a four-way mayoral race alongside the incumbent Eric Adams (net worth: at least $3.5 million, Forbes estimates) and whoever the Democrats and Republicans nominate. Deep-pocketed billionaire donors have lined up to back him, including over $8 million from former mayor Michael Bloomberg and $500,000 from hedge funder Bill Ackman. Cuomo is framing his comeback as a way for New Yorkers to fight against a different billionaire. 'We beat Trump once. We're gonna beat him again,' he told a Bronx crowd at a Juneteenth rally. 'And we're gonna make this city better than it has ever been before—together.'
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