Featured Image Credit: Brock Pierce/Disney
Topics: Film and TV, Politics, Disney
Michael Slavin
When you think of the richest actors in the world, some obvious names come up.
Whether it be Robert Downey Jr earning $50,000,000 and up every time he played Iron Man or the Friends cast earning $1,000,000 per episode towards the end of their run – there are certain names that immediately spring to mind.
Sometimes though that is not the case, as shown by the richest actor in the world being one you’ll probably not have heard of it – and another actor worth billions who hasn’t starred in a film since 1997.
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Add to this the fact they ran for president in 2020 with Akon as their campaign manager, and you really couldn’t make it up.
The actor in question is Brock Pierce, a former child star who is now reportedly worth $2 billion, making him the third richest actor in the world, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Pierce retired from acting at 16, having racked up an impressive 11 credits by that age, starring in films such as First Kid (where he ironically played the -president's son) and the first two Mighty Ducks films.
Ironically – one of his only film roles since then was as a technical consultant for Silicon Valley, a show focused on a bunch of programmers trying to make a billion-dollar company in Silicon Valley.
While he may not have been a programmer – Pierce has gone on to make billions.
At 16, Pierce co-founded the ‘Digital Entertainment Network’ (DEN) with others, raising $88 million in funding.
The company looked to take on streaming videos a full seven years before YouTube, and nine before Netflix – but ultimately shuttered.
After that, Pierce was an early investor in Bitcoin, and founded several companies focused on entertainment and investing.
Described in a profile by Rolling Stone as ‘The Hippie King of Cryptocurrency’, this became a core aspect of his run for president in 2020 – with the former actor claiming the US needs to embrace crypto.
He said of cryptocurrency: “It has the potential to change the global or economic system in which we live."
He ran in 2020 against Joe Biden and Donald Trump, announcing his candidacy the same day as Kanye West.
Pierce received 49,764 votes, finishing nearly 20,000 short of Kanye West, and about 81 million short of winning.
Despite this, Pierce ran an election to become the US Senator for Vermont. He did not appear on the ballot, with Other/Write-ins receiving 612 votes.
The crypto billionaire has pledged to run again in 2024, however he is yet to declare his candidacy – and the deadline has passed in two states.