Michael Saul Dell (born February 23, 1965) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, one of the world's largest technology infrastructure companies. He is ranked 27th richest in the world by Forbes, with a net worth of $27.2 billion as of April 2020.
In 2011, his 243.35 million shares of Dell Inc. stock were worth $3.5 billion, giving him 12% ownership of the company. His remaining wealth of roughly $10 billion is invested in other companies and is managed by MSD Capital, which incorporates his initials. In January 2013 it was announced that he had bid to take Dell Inc. private for $24.4 billion in the biggest management buyout since the Great Recession. Dell Inc. officially went private in October 2013. The company once again went public in December 2018.
Dell was born in 1965 in Houston, to a Jewish family whose surname reflects the translation into English of the original German Tal ("valley" or "dale "; modern common-noun spelling Tal) upon the family's immigration to the United States. His parents were Lorraine Charlotte (née Langfan), a stockbroker, and Alexander Dell, an orthodontist. Michael Dell attended Herod Elementary School in Houston. In a bid to enter business early, he applied to take a high school equivalency exam at age eight. In his early teens, he invested his earnings from part-time jobs in stocks and precious metals.