Sugar Land is a city just southwest of Houston. There are 118,709 people living in Sugar Land, but none is wealthier than Leo KoGuan.
KoGuan is a US citizen born in Indonesia. He graduated from Columbia University in 1982 with a Master of International Affairs and from New York Law School in 1985. In 1989, He co-founded the IT firm SHI International in the US with his then-Bangkok-born wife, Thai Lee, which has over 20,000 customers, like Boeing and AT&T.
The company now has an annual revenue of around US $11 billion, but KoGuan has stepped away from day-to-day operation, although he's the chairman and holds an approximately $3.2 billion stake in the company, which is private.
Forbes estimates KoGuan's net worth at $5.7 billion. That puts him 1,444th on the Forbes Billionaires List of 2021.
No one knows him
KoGuan is a billionaire who managed to stay out of the public eye. According to Entrepreneur magazine, he only became known because Forbes listed him as one of the richest people in the world.
Recently, his name also came up in the news for two reasons:
- First, he purchased James Dyson's KoGuan's penthouse, famous for vacuum cleaners in Singapore, for 54 million dollars.
- He bought 6.2 million shares of Tesla.
His investing strategy is very simple but reckless. He focuses only on one stock, Tesla. He told Market Realist, "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Fortunately, I win more of the time than I lose."
When Tesla stocks dropped, he didn't waver. Instead, he bought more stocks and continues to add more Tesla stocks to his portfolio.
Elon Musk fanboy
Many people know him as a die-hard Elon Musk fan who has put his fortune on Elon's company, Tesla. He adds, "I would say he's the only person I respect in the world." KoGuan walks the talk. He is the third-largest single shareholder in Tesla.
He sold some of his shares during the pandemic, such as Baidu, Nvidia, China Mobile, and Nio. Then used the money to buy Tesla shares. Leo KoGuan confirmed he is the third-largest individual Tesla shareholder, behind billionaire Larry Ellison and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, on his social media accounts. The claim appears to be justified by a company spokesperson, Martin Viecha.
While it would be hard to catch up to Larry Ellison and Elon Musk, KoGuan Leo says he is still a buyer of Tesla shares.
He is the biggest believer in Tesla and Elon Musk. He publicly tweeted that he "I will rise and fall with Tesla." In addition, he continued to raise funds to purchase extra million shares of the company in early 2022.
However, according to Business Insider, "Few would know of KoGuan's stake since it's well below the 5% threshold that requires public disclosure in the US."
Leo KoGuan philanthropy
Leo Koguan established the Leo Koguan Foundation, giving millions of dollars to educational institutions. He heavily concentrates on Asian educational institutions.
Inside Philanthropy magazine expects Kogan's support of select Asian educational institutions to continue for a long time, "KoGuan pledged $30 million to the law school at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, renaming it in his honor. In addition, KoGuan is a visiting professor at several universities in China and has strong ties to the community."
He also supported the Fudan University Education Development Foundation, Peking University Educational Foundation, and Tsinghua Education Foundation.
Social media presence
You can follow Leo KoGuan on Twitter and Linkedin.
He now has almost 21,500 followers on Twitter–which might not seem a lot, but it's composed of a distinct group of Tesla enthusiasts. KoGuan is a physics nerd like Musk and uses social media to promote a physics system called KQID Time Engine, which he developed himself.
Have you heard about KoGuan before reading this article?
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