Biography & Early Wealth Journey

Grant Cardone built his original fortune through sales consulting and business training before expanding aggressively into real estate, private investing, online education, conferences, and business consulting. He is the founder and CEO of Cardone Capital, a real estate investment company that raises money from outside investors to acquire large multifamily and commercial properties around the United States.

Cardone Capital has grown into the largest component of his public business empire. By 2026, the company reported approximately $5.4 billion in assets under management, more than $2 billion of investor capital raised, roughly 14,850 residential units under management, and more than 20,000 investors. Assets under management are not the same thing as Cardone's personal wealth. The properties are generally owned through investment funds and property-specific LLCs funded by Cardone and outside investors, while Cardone earns money through direct equity interests, ownership of management entities, founder profit interests, acquisition and management fees, and appreciation.

Outside real estate, Cardone operates an extensive sales-training and education business and is a co-founder of Cardone Ventures, a business consulting and investment company. His best-known books include "The 10X Rule," "Sell or Be Sold," "If You're Not First, You're Last," and "Be Obsessed or Be Average." He has also built the 10X brand around conferences, online courses, sales programs, consulting, and media.

Early Life

Primary Income Streams & Multi-Million Contracts

Grant Cardone was born on March 21, 1958, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. He was one of five children born to Curtis Louis Cardone and Concetta Neil Cardone and has a twin brother named Gary. Grant's father died when he was 10 years old.

Cardone graduated from LaGrange High School and later attended McNeese State University, earning an accounting degree in 1981. McNeese subsequently honored him with its Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Cardone has spoken extensively about struggling with drug addiction during his early 20s. He has said that his substance abuse culminated in a stay at a rehabilitation facility when he was 25 and that getting sober became the turning point of his life.

Automobile Sales and Sales Training

Real Estate, Luxury Assets & Personal Investments

After college, Cardone entered the automobile industry rather than pursuing a traditional accounting career. He worked in car sales and became increasingly interested in the psychology and systems behind selling.

Cardone eventually began working with automobile dealerships as a sales trainer and consultant. Instead of relying only on individual sales ability, he developed structured programs intended to teach employees how to follow up with leads, handle objections, increase closing rates, and build repeat business.

That work grew into Cardone Training Technologies and the broader Grant Cardone Enterprises operation. Over time, the company expanded beyond automotive sales into training for entrepreneurs, small businesses, sales organizations, executives, and large corporations.

Recruiting materials published by Grant Cardone Enterprises have described an organization with more than 260 employees and nine figures in annual revenue.

Wealth Trajectory & Future Earnings Projections

Via Getty Images

Books and the 10X Brand

Cardone turned his sales philosophy into a series of books, courses, and live events. His books include "Sell to Survive," "If You're Not First, You're Last," "Sell or Be Sold," "The 10X Rule," "The Closer's Survival Guide," and "Be Obsessed or Be Average."

"The 10X Rule" became the centerpiece of his personal brand. The basic philosophy argues that people tend to underestimate both the size of the goals they should pursue and the amount of action required to achieve them.

Cardone subsequently built the 10X brand into a much larger business encompassing online sales education, seminars, conferences, consulting programs, podcasts, social media, and merchandise. His 10X Growth Conference has attracted thousands of entrepreneurs and sales professionals to large arenas and convention venues.

His aggressive speaking style and constant use of social media helped him build a massive audience while simultaneously creating a customer-acquisition system for his training and investment businesses.

Real Estate Beginnings

Cardone began buying real estate long before launching Cardone Capital. He has said his first property purchase was a single-family rental in Houston when he was around 29.

The experience convinced him that he preferred multifamily properties, where the loss of a single tenant would not eliminate all of the property's rental income. Several years later, he acquired a 38-unit apartment complex in San Diego for approximately $1.9 million.

Cardone continued acquiring apartment properties throughout the following decades and created Cardone Real Estate Acquisitions in the 1990s. His early portfolio was financed largely with his own money and conventional real estate debt before he began raising substantial amounts of outside investor capital.

Cardone Capital

Grant launched Cardone Capital in 2016 to raise investor money for larger real estate acquisitions. The company has since created numerous funds targeting multifamily apartments and other commercial properties.

By 2026, Cardone Capital reported approximately $5.4 billion in assets under management, $2 billion in funds raised, more than 20,000 investors, and approximately 14,850 units under management. The company has also reported distributing hundreds of millions of dollars to investors since its creation.

Those figures describe the size of the investment platform, not the amount of property personally owned by Cardone.

Public SEC filings provide a clearer picture of how the investments are structured. Individual properties are generally held through separate LLCs whose owners can include one or more Cardone investment funds and Grant personally. Depending on the investment, SEC filings have disclosed direct ownership by Cardone ranging from zero to several percent of individual property-owning entities.

Cardone also owns Cardone Capital, which serves as manager of the investment funds. In several offerings, the manager has received founder interests entitling it to a portion of future distributable profits. Cardone-controlled entities also collect various fees associated with acquiring and managing properties.

As a result, Cardone can participate economically in the real estate business in several ways at once: through direct property equity, ownership of the management company, founder profit participation, and fees generated by the investment platform.

Cardone Ventures

In 2019, Cardone partnered with entrepreneur Brandon Dawson and Natalie Dawson to create Cardone Ventures. The business works with owners of small and midsize companies on sales, marketing, management, hiring, acquisitions, and scaling.

Cardone Ventures has itself grown into a sizable operation. The company has reported reaching approximately $225 million in annual revenue, employing more than 250 people, and working with thousands of businesses.

The company also describes itself as actively managing and engineering businesses representing more than $2 billion in assets. As with Cardone Capital, that figure reflects assets associated with companies being advised, managed, or invested in through the platform rather than Grant's personal ownership.

Cardone Ventures has also participated in investments and acquisitions, expanding the Cardone business network beyond training and real estate.

"Undercover Billionaire"

In 2021, Cardone appeared in the second season of Discovery Channel's reality series "Undercover Billionaire." He was one of three entrepreneurs attempting the same challenge originally undertaken by Glenn Stearns in the first season.

The premise stripped Cardone of access to his money, business contacts, and public identity and dropped him in Pueblo, Colorado, with $100. His task was to build a business valued at $1 million within 90 days while concealing his identity.

Cardone operated under the alias Louis Curtis and became involved with a local marketing and events business during the challenge. The series gave viewers a more extended look at the sales and deal-making techniques around which he had built his public career.

Television and Media

Cardone has spent years using television and online media to promote both his business philosophy and his companies. He developed and appeared in the National Geographic series "Turnaround King," which followed his efforts to advise struggling businesses.

He and his wife, Elena, also created "The G&E Show," an online series about business, marriage, money, and family life.

Cardone has made numerous appearances on business and financial television and was previously featured on Joan Rivers' series "How'd You Get So Rich?"

Securities Litigation

Cardone and several Cardone Capital entities are defendants in a federal securities class action involving Cardone Equity Funds V and VI.

The lawsuit alleges that promotional statements concerning projected returns, distributions, and debt associated with the funds contained misleading statements or omitted material information. Cardone and the other defendants deny that they violated federal securities laws.

A federal district court initially dismissed the case, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals revived portions of the claims in 2025. In 2026, the district court certified a class consisting of investors who purchased interests in Funds V and VI through their public offerings.

The defendants sought permission to appeal the class-certification ruling, but the Ninth Circuit declined the request. The litigation remains unresolved.

Personal Life

Grant is married to actress and entrepreneur Elena Lyons. They married in 2004 and have two daughters, Sabrina and Scarlett.

Elena has become closely involved in the Cardone brand and appears with Grant at business events, online programs, and real estate ventures. The couple relocated their primary business operations to South Florida after spending many years in California.

Cardone is a member of the Church of Scientology and has spoken publicly about its influence on his life and business philosophy.

Malibu Mansion

In January 2022, Cardone paid $40 million for an approximately 9,500-square-foot oceanfront mansion on Carbon Beach in Malibu, an area sometimes nicknamed "Billionaires' Beach."

The property sits near homes owned by some of America's wealthiest business and entertainment figures, including Oracle founder Larry Ellison and producer Jeffrey Katzenberg. Cardone offered the house for sale in 2024 for approximately $65 million and also advertised it for rent at $250,000 per month.

The home suffered damage during the Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025, although its concrete construction helped it survive while numerous neighboring properties were destroyed. Cardone subsequently began restoration work.

Golden Beach Mansion

In 2021, an LLC controlled by Cardone paid $24 million for an oceanfront estate in Golden Beach, Florida, from fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger and his wife, Dee Ocleppo.

The roughly 13,000-square-foot mansion sits on approximately two-thirds of an acre with 100 feet of ocean frontage, an infinity pool, private beach access, and a beach cabana. Cardone later offered the property for approximately $42 million.

In 2025, Cardone announced that the home had gone under contract in a transaction priced at 400 Bitcoin, worth roughly $44 million at the time. The property attracted additional attention because Cardone specifically marketed it to cryptocurrency buyers.

Cardone previously owned other luxury homes in California, including a Los Angeles property that was later acquired by musician Lionel Richie.

Here is a video tour of the Golden Beach home:

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