Laurene Powell Jobs [is] “famous because of her last name and fortune [and] she has always been private and publicity-averse,” Peter Lattman and Claire Cain Miller report for The New York Times. “Her philanthropic work, especially on education causes like College Track, the college prep organization she helped found… has been her priority and focus.”
“Now, less than two years after Mr. Jobs’s death, Ms. Powell Jobs is becoming somewhat less private. She has tiptoed into the public sphere, pushing her agenda in education as well as global conservation, nutrition and immigration policy,” Lattman and Miller report. “Just last month, for example, she sat down for a rare television interview, discussing the immigration bill before Congress. She has also taken on new issues, like gun control.”
“The fortune she inherited, making her the world’s ninth wealthiest woman, according to the Bloomberg billionaires index, has catapulted her into the upper echelon of global philanthropists. And that has led to certain expectations,” Lattman and Miller report. “Ms. Powell Jobs has a net worth estimated at $11.5 billion, according to Bloomberg, most of it in shares of the Walt Disney Company. Mr. Jobs helped found the animation studio Pixar, which Disney acquired in 2006 and paid for in stock. With 131 million shares, worth about $8.7 billion, the Laurene Powell Jobs Trust is Disney’s largest shareholder with a 7.3 percent stake in the company, and she has benefited from the stock having more than doubled since her husband died in October 2011. Mr. Jobs also owned 5.5 million shares of Apple at the time of his death, and it is unclear whether she has sold her position.”
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