Oh, Wilbur.
President Trump’s billionaire commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, has a big problem: He is apparently not a billionaire.
Forbes magazine, keeper of the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, reports that it dropped Ross from its list this year because of a “phantom $2 billion” that Ross claimed he had but apparently does not exist. Instead of the $3.7 billion Ross claimed he was worth (Forbes last year put it at $2.9 billion), his financial disclosures showed — gasp — less than $700 million in assets.
Most Americans, upon being told they were worth “only” $700 million, would say: Please don’t throw me into that briar patch! But Ross was disgraced, and mad. He claimed to Forbes that he transferred $2 billion into trusts for his children and others but offered no proof, and this claim was contradicted by his own staff.
Forbes performed some forensics and concluded that Ross has been lying for years about his wealth. As for the missing $2 billion, Forbes reports: