Net Worth: $2.2 B
Age: 53
Source: Steel
Industries: Manufacturing
Barry Zekelman took over his family’s steel business at age 19 and has since grown it into one of North America’s largest steel pipe and tube makers. He sold the company to the Carlyle Group in 2006 for some $1.2 billion, but continued to help run it. He and his family bought it back in 2011. Today Barry and his two brothers, Clayton and Alan Zekelman, split 100% ownership of the $2.8 billion (revenues) firm, now named Zekelman Industries. He made headlines when he was captured on a secret recording of a 2018 Trump donor dinner, bending the president’s ear about the steel business. One of Zekelman Industries’ subsidiaries, Atlas Tube, is producing steel for the stretches of the Mexican border wall going up in Arizona.