Gore Inc. (Algore has made a fortune since 2000)

Forbes ^ | 6/5/06 | Matthew Miller

[wagglebee]

Five years ago Al Gore seemed a bit washed up. The Florida fiasco left him looking more like a sore loser than a martyr. He wasn't doing well financially, either. He had a reported minimum net worth of only $800,000 the year before the election.

But now, glory, honor and money are all his. Gore, 58, is the hero of a scary documentary on environmental decay (An Inconvenient Truth, due to be released across the U.S. soon after its May 24 opening in New York and Los Angeles). He has recently been the cover boy for Wired and Vanity Fair, penning for the latter a lengthy essay on the need for environmental reform. If we get another bad hurricane season, he could become a very plausible contender against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in two years.

As for money, his biggest payday may come from Google. In February 2001 Gore signed on as a part-time senior adviser. What did he get? His handlers won't say, but if any part of the compensation was in stock or options, that equity would have to be worth a princely sum, as Google has had explosive success since then in collecting advertising dollars. For a reference point, compare Eric Schmidt, who joined a month later as the chairman and got equity now worth $5.2 billion. If Gore's stake is just a sliver in comparison, it could still be an immense sum.

In 2003 Gore took a seat on the board of Apple Computer; today he has 60,000 options, worth $2 million. The following year he and a few others invested $70 million (Gore's share was not disclosed) to start Current TV, a cable network aimed at young "citizen journalists." The network is available on cable systems servicing 28 million households but has produced no hits. (One-third of its content comes from viewers.)

Gore got into the equity games in 2004, founding Generation Investment Management with former Goldman Sachs honcho David Blood. Run from London, the firm puts money from institutions and rich people into companies that are going green or make products that help others be more environmentally or socially sound. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece Gore cited General Electric and Whole Foods as companies he likes (he won't say which companies he has positions in or how the fund is performing). Generation charges an undisclosed fee with a bonus based on three-year performance. Assets under management: secret.

Gore also hits the lecture circuit, getting from $75,000 to $150,000 for paid appearances. (His busy schedule includes a fair amount of unpaid lecturing, too.) Again, the Gore camp is mum on total billings, but a few million a year seems plausible.

Could that movie be a hit? It's extremely well put together but doesn't have quite the entertainment appeal of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (worldwide gross: $204 million). Some well- connected people are behind the venture as producers or funders. One is Laurie David, wife of wealthy Seinfeld cocreator Larry David; another is Jeffrey Skoll, the billionaire cofounder of Ebay whose Participant Productions supports films with a social bent (e.g., Syriana and Murderball). The distributor of An Inconvenient Truth, Paramount Classics, has pledged 5% of the movie's gross to a nonprofit educational group Gore founded called Alliance for Climate Protection. Gore has reportedly contributed $250,000 to the group and says any money he makes from the movie will be donated.

He doesn't need the extra money. Unless he wants to run for President.

[wagglebee]

And just how much of his own money has he spent to combat global warming?!

[Mikey_1962]

When you jet around the world exhausting more fuel in a week than most people do in a lifetime and travel in motorcades that rival small-town parades, it's hard to take the "be green like me" argument seriously.

[AmeriBrit]

All the deals selling US secrets must be starting to pay off.

[Herford Turley]

And just how much of his own money has he spent to combat global warming?!

Now that's not fair, w. It's all for the sake of the children.

:-)

[geezerwheezer]

Gore's "carbon footprint" would stomp a forest out of existence.Where the heck do they come up with this junk science? I don't think anybody wants to not take care of the environment, but Al flits around on his jets and tells me to walk or drive a smaller car? Well, I hope Al Gore knows what part of my anatomy he can kiss!

[angkor]

There was a small article (blog?) on this somewhere a few weeks ago, and a Gore "insider" said he could easily come up with $50 or $60 million to finance a campaign from his Google stock.

Yikes.

[HHFi]

Not surprising that Laurie David put up the money for this tripe, since she's a left-wing kook who fancies herself an empress, telling all the rest of us peons how to live every moment of our lives when she's not busy making fatuous pronouncements on environmental science, foreign policy and other subjects she knows nothing about. Apparently, there is something magical about marrying an unfunny comedian who had the good luck to be Jerry Seinfeld's partner, who wrote possibly the worst finale in sitcom history and who screwed all the cast members out of profit-sharing so that he could personally pocket $250 million in syndication money, that somehow turns you into an omniscient goddess.

Interesting how all these liberals who hate capitalist Republicans so much seem to be rolling in more money than most hard-working Republicans can even imagine.

[labette]

Now why would Apple offer Al a seat on the board after the the Clintonistas worked overtime to shake down Bill Gates?

Genius must be in heavy demand.

[labette]

/sarcasm

[Caipirabob]

Pt.Barnum said it best...

[RightOnline]

Yeah, well.......just go back and see what he and ol' Tipper gave in charitable contributions while he was V.P. Public record.

One word: pathetic.

[elcid1970]

Does Algore traffic in `filthy capitalist dollars'?

I thought liberals never touch the stuff!

[purpleland]

"And just how much of his own money has he spent to combat global warming?!"

Al Gore doesn't donate to Veterans' relief orgs, nor to hospitals for the military wounded nor for the ease of their families. Like the Heinz-Kerrys, funding services for our honorable military is NOT a patriotic deed. Who knows? "Global Warming" may be just another leftist/liberal money-making scheme generating fear and false altruism.

[Brian Allen]

<< All the deals selling US secrets must be starting to pay off. >>

As they've been paying off, for more than seventy years already, in his Soviet agent Armand Hammer Occidental remunerated serially Socialist Internationale serving treasonous family.

For only such individual acts of treason as, for example, his having sold the United States' Navy's strategic oil reserve to Occidental or his sold-out to the mobbed-up unionized airline dinosaurs pro-terrorism "investigation" of airline/airport "security" -- to which the September 11 2001 mass-murderers owe their success -- the bastard needs taking to the woodshed.

Wall.

[jwh_Denver]

I quit using Google as my search engine because they have essentially financed a Gore campaign. It's there business but I'm not throwing any money their way. I've gone to Clusty.

[Malesherbes]

Good move. I've done exactly the same thing.

[PGalt]

Al has lots of dollars but no sense.

Run Al Run!

[kcvl]

I can't imagine why Al Gore would impress liberal, Matt Miller. /sarcasm

Matt Miller is a nationally syndicated columnist; an award-winning contributor to The New York Times Magazine, the The Atlantic Monthly, and other national magazines; a commentator for National Public Radio's 'Morning Edition;' and the host of "Left, Right & Center," a political week-in-review program aired on public radio stations across the country.

Miller's October 2000 piece in The Atlantic Monthly seeking a pragmatic way to get both parties to push toward universal health coverage was a finalist for the National Magazine Award.

[Fixit]

We must ALL Stop ManBearPig