From Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg, these are the high-profile billionaires who have founded schools

Business Insider

22-06-2025

Several billionaires have started schools, to varying degrees of success.
The ventures stretch from preschools to high schools, and many are founded by tech billionaires.
Some are scheduled to close, and some have yet to open.
Billionaires can seem everywhere these days, and the school system is no different. In recent years, a number of the country's wealthiest have founded schools, to varying degrees of success.
As the education system is undergoing potentially profound changes under President Donald Trump 's second administration and some schools face privatization, billionaires have thrown their hats — and dollars — into the educational ring.
From Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg, here are some of the billionaires who have founded schools in recent years.
Elon Musk
The Tesla CEO and the world's richest man has founded multiple schools. His latest, a private preschool called Ad Astra, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2025, according to its website.
Ad Astra is in Bastrop, Texas, close to Starbase, the city Musk founded near his SpaceX complex. The school is accepting applications for kids between the ages of three and nine. It's not a Montessori school but draws on similar principles, focusing on child-centered learning, according to the website. The curriculum focuses on STEM subjects — fitting since Ad Astra is Latin for "to the stars."
According to the school's site, Ad Astra will subsidize tuition in the opening year and will later cost around as much as local private schools. A permit from the Texas Health and Human Services Department allowing Ad Astra to open in 2025 specified that it can enroll 21 students in its first year. The application materials, first reported by Bloomberg, said the school aims to expand into a STEM-focused university.
None of the application materials to the state include Musk's name, but his foundation donated $100 million to the preschool, according to tax filings, as BI previously reported.
In 2014, Musk opened a different school in California named Ad Astra for his children and the kids of SpaceX employees. That venture evolved into a largely online school called Astra Nova.
According to its website, Astra Nova serves around 300 students between the ages of 10 and 14. Class offerings on the site range from special relativity to songwriting to ethical hacking.
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan created The Primary School in 2016 through their philanthropy, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The tuition-free private school said in April 2025 that it would close by the end of the 2026 academic year.
The Primary School is a tuition-free private school with locations in East Palo Alto and East Bay, California. According to its website, it serves hundreds of students and works to more closely connect parents, teachers, and medical and mental health professionals.
The school's website highlights diversity, equity, and inclusion, and its closure was announced at the same time some of Zuckerberg's other ventures rolled back DEI efforts. Meta dropped many of its DEI initiatives in January 2025, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative ended its own DEI efforts one month later.
A message announcing the closure on the school website says that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will invest $50 million in surrounding communities in the coming years, including savings plans for soon-to-be former students and "transition specialists" for families.
Zuckerberg was worth $235.6 billion at the time of writing, according to Forbes.
Jeff Bezos
Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos founded a whole network of preschools called Bezos Academy. He started the schools through the Bezos Day One Fund, and the first location opened in 2020.
Bezos Academy runs "Montessori-inspired preschools in under-resourced communities," according to its website. Bezos attended a Montessori school himself.
The schools are tuition-free and serve children between the ages of three and five. The website lists schools in Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Texas, and Washington.
Bezos was worth $226.8 billion at the time of writing, according to Forbes.
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey opened the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, a boarding school in South Africa, in 2007. More than 525 girls have graduated, according to the Oprah Foundation website.
The school serves students from 8th to 12th grade and has a 1% acceptance rate, per the Oprah Foundation. Oprah posted on Instagram about attending graduation at the school in 2024, saying in the caption that she had been to 22 of the ceremonies.
Oprah was worth $3.1 billion at the time of writing, according to Forbes.
LeBron James
Los Angeles Lakers star Lebron James founded a school in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, in 2018, in partnership with the local public school system. The LeBron James Family Foundation backed the I Promise School, which is "dedicated to those students who are already falling behind and in danger of falling through the cracks," according to its website.
As a public school, I Promise is funded by the Akron Public Schools district, but receives addition funds from James' foundation, according to Case Western University. It serves students between first and eighth grade and provides wraparound services, including a longer school day.
James was worth $1.2 billion at the time of writing, according to Forbes.
Laurene Powell Jobs
Unlike the other billionaires on this list, investor Laurene Powell Jobs hasn't started one individual school but an independent nonprofit that distributes money to high schools across the country. According to its website, XQ Institute is "rethinking high school " and is based on the idea that the rapidly changing workplace and technological world demand a new educational approach.
Powell Jobs, widow of Steve Jobs, co-founded XQ Institute in 2015. Powell Jobs' organization, the Emerson Collective, has invested $300 million in XQ Institute, which has also granted grants to schools across the country. However, as BI previously reported, XQ Institute has encountered some controversies over its data and efficacy in recent years.
Powell Jobs was worth $13.9 billion at the time of writing, according to Forbes.