Dr. Dre has officially made the Forbes 2026 Billionaires List.
Over ten years after the producer and music mogul sold Beats by Dre to Apple for a whopping $3 billion, Dr. Dre has crossed the $1 billion net worth threshold. The founding member of former rap group N.W.A. has become the sixth musician to be placed on the list, following Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Rihanna and more. Although Dr. Dre is placed on the highly coveted list, he’s tied for 3332nd place alongside Rihanna, former presidential advisor Jared Kushner and others.
Upon Dr. Dre making the Beats deal in 2014, R&B vocalist and actor Tyrese Gibson falsely declared in a video that the music icon would become hip-hop’s first billionaire. Forbes later proved this to be false and reported that, after taxes, the finalized deal would leave Dr. Dre with a net worth of $800 million. In partnership with Interscope co-founder and Beats’ primary owner Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre is twenty-five percent owner of Beats Electronics and would have accrued $480 million from the sale after taxes.
In addition to his part ownership of Beats, Dr. Dre is the founder of Aftermath Entertainment, which boasts 50 Cent, Eminem, Eve and The Game as past artists, and is a member of the Recording Academy’s National Board of Trustees. In 2023, the Recording Academy established the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award, which has been awarded to Jay-Z, Alicia Keys and Pharrell Williams.