5. John Tu — $9.7 billion | Los Angeles Business Journal

5

NET WORTH: $9.7 billion
AGE: 79
RESIDENCE: Rolling Hills
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Technology
LAST YEAR: $8.8 billion
CHANGE: +10%

THE MONEY: Tu owns a 50% stake in Kingston Technology Corp., which he co-founded with David Sun. Kingston is their second successful venture. Previously they founded memory products maker Camintonn Corp. in the 1980s and sold it to AST Research Inc. Tu and Sun started Kingston after losing millions of dollars of their Camintonn proceeds in the 1987 stock market crash. They sold 80% of Kingston to Japan’s SoftBank for $1.5 billion in 1996, then bought the company back for $450 million in 1999. Kingston, which makes flash memory products, solid-state drives and other computer-related items, posted $12.8 billion in revenue last year.

THE BUZZ: Although Kingston is headquartered in Fountain Valley, Tu lives in Rolling Hills. Kingston, which employs more than 3,000 people worldwide, also offers supply chain management services for semiconductor manufacturers. Tu is also the primary backer of Fluxergy, an Irvine-based biotechnology startup that developed a test that identifies the virus that causes Covid-19 in just one hour. Tu was born in China and emigrated to the United States by way of Germany in 1972.

Return to the 2020 edition of the LA500.