Karoline Leavitt | Celebrity Net Worth 2026

Biography & Early Wealth Journey

Leavitt became White House press secretary under Donald Trump in January 2025. At 27, she became the youngest person ever to hold the position. In August 2026, after the birth of her second child and a return from maternity leave, Leavitt announced that she would step down as press secretary at the end of the month to spend more time with her family. Trump said she would remain one of his top outside advisers and continue playing a role in Republican politics.

Previously, Leavitt worked in Trump's first administration as a presidential writer and assistant press secretary, served as communications director for Representative Elise Stefanik, ran unsuccessfully for Congress in New Hampshire's 1st district, and later became national press secretary for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.

Financial Disclosures

Karoline Leavitt's earlier congressional financial disclosures showed limited personal assets. In her 2021 House candidate filing, she reported no significant assets, such as investments, real estate, or bank accounts, and no unearned income. Her 2022 campaign disclosure similarly showed no major financial holdings at the time.

Primary Income Streams & Multi-Million Contracts

Leavitt also reported no personal liabilities, debts, loans, or financial obligations. While her campaign later carried debt, those obligations were tied to the campaign committee and were not personal liabilities. Based on those earlier filings, her disclosed personal net worth at the time was effectively near zero, aside from any cash savings from salary. Her earned income for 2021 was around $70,000, with a prior-year salary of $48,800, but no reported investments or property.

That earlier picture changed substantially after Leavitt entered the White House and filed a 2025 OGE Form 278e New Entrant public financial disclosure tied to her January 20, 2025 appointment as White House press secretary. In that filing, Leavitt reported ownership of KCL, LLC, a Hampton, New Hampshire-based company, and listed $165,000 in business income from the entity, along with $35,000 in salary from the Republican National Committee. She also disclosed compensation sources over $5,000 from Newsmax, the Howie Carr Radio Network, Ayotte for Governor, MAGA Inc., the Republican National Committee, Donald J. Trump for President, Lupoli Companies, Olympic Media, and KCL, LLC.

The 2025 disclosure also showed meaningful household liquidity. Leavitt listed six U.S. bank cash accounts with combined disclosed value ranges of roughly $1.2 million to $2.55 million. She also listed a brokerage account containing individual stock positions in companies including Tesla, Nvidia, Boeing, Exxon Mobil, AMD, Occidental Petroleum, Robinhood, RTX, Serve Robotics, Trump Media & Technology Group, and U.S. Steel. Based on the reported ranges, those stock holdings were worth roughly $60,000 to $250,000.

The disclosure also reflected the financial impact of her marriage to Nicholas Riccio. Under spouse-related employment assets and income, the filing listed Nautical Beach Resort, LLC, Riccio Enterprises, LLC, and Nautical Motel, LLC as business-income sources. The filing did not provide values or income amounts for those spouse-related businesses, so it cannot be used to calculate Riccio's exact real estate equity. However, it does confirm that the family's financial picture is heavily tied to his Hampton Beach real estate and lodging businesses.

Real Estate, Luxury Assets & Personal Investments

The filing also listed three investment/rental-property mortgages: one with Kennebunk Savings, one with Enterprise Bank, and one with Newburyport Bank. Each mortgage was disclosed as being over $1 million, meaning the household reported at least $3 million in investment-property debt. Those liabilities appear connected to the real estate portfolio, not ordinary consumer debt.

Nicholas Riccio Real Estate

Karoline Leavitt's husband, Nicholas Riccio, built his fortune through Hampton Beach, New Hampshire real estate. His business interests are connected to Riccio Enterprises, Nautical Beach Properties, Nautical Beach Resort, and the Nautical Motel. The known portfolio includes vacation rental homes at 12 M Street, 16 M Street, and 17 M Street, the Nautical Motel at 147 Ashworth Avenue, and a cluster of beach apartments and rental units around M Street, including 1 M Street, 14 M Street, 16-B, 16-D, 16-E, and 21-1 M Street.

Riccio began buying distressed Hampton Beach properties in the early 1990s, when some buildings in the area were available at very low prices. Several of those properties have appreciated dramatically. For example, 16 M Street was reportedly purchased for $80,000 in 1996 and later carried a 2024 assessment of roughly $850,000, while 17 M Street was assessed at just over $1 million. The three primary M Street houses alone appear to be worth roughly $2.7 million to $3 million. The Nautical Motel is likely worth at least $1.5 million as an income-producing commercial property, and the remaining beach apartments and rental units likely add several million more.

Wealth Trajectory & Future Earnings Projections

Overall, Riccio's visible Hampton Beach real estate portfolio appears to have a gross value in the $9 million to $12 million range. Karoline's 2025 White House financial disclosure also listed spouse-related business income sources tied to Nautical Beach Resort, Riccio Enterprises, and Nautical Motel, along with three investment/rental-property mortgages of more than $1 million each. That means the exact equity value is not public, but the portfolio supports an estimated household net worth of around $10 million.

White House Salary

As White House press secretary, Leavitt earns a reported salary of $195,200 per year. That represented a major increase from her earlier earnings as a young political aide, congressional candidate, media contributor, and campaign spokesperson. Her 2025 financial disclosure also listed $165,000 in business income from KCL, LLC and $35,000 in salary from the Republican National Committee before her White House appointment.

Leavitt is scheduled to leave the salaried White House press secretary position at the end of August 2026. Trump has said she will continue working with him as a top outside adviser, although the compensation structure for that role was not immediately disclosed.

(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Early Life and Education

Karoline Leavitt was born on August 24, 1997, in Atkinson, New Hampshire. Her family owned an ice cream shop and a used truck dealership in nearby Plaistow. As a teenager, Leavitt attended Central Catholic High School in Lawrence, Massachusetts. After graduating in 2015, she went to Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire on an NCAA Division II softball scholarship.

In college, Leavitt became an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump. She wrote opinion pieces in the college newspaper defending his 2017 travel ban and criticizing the mainstream news media. She also founded Saint Anselm College's first broadcasting club, worked at Hearst Television's WMUR-TV, and interned at Fox News. Leavitt graduated in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in communications and politics.

Early Political Career

After college, Leavitt entered the first Trump White House. She worked in the Office of Presidential Correspondence and later became an assistant press secretary under Kayleigh McEnany. After Trump left office in January 2021, Leavitt became communications director for Republican U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York.

The Stefanik role helped raise Leavitt's profile inside conservative politics. She became part of a younger generation of Trump-aligned Republican communicators who built careers around cable news appearances, rapid-response messaging, and social media-driven political branding.

2022 Congressional Campaign

In 2022, Leavitt ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in New Hampshire's 1st district. Her campaign leaned heavily into her Trump White House background and combative media style. She attracted support from prominent conservatives, including Ted Cruz, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, and Elise Stefanik.

Leavitt won the Republican primary in an upset, defeating Matt Mowers, who had been the party's nominee in the district two years earlier. In the general election, she lost to Democratic incumbent Chris Pappas.

Campaign Finance Issues

After Leavitt's 2022 congressional campaign, her campaign committee faced scrutiny over excessive contributions and unpaid debts. In 2022, the group End Citizens United filed a Federal Election Commission complaint alleging that her campaign had accepted contributions over the legal limit and failed to properly refund donors.

In 2025, Leavitt's campaign amended a series of filings and disclosed more than $326,000 in unpaid campaign debt. A significant portion of that debt involved donations that exceeded federal contribution limits and were supposed to be refunded. The campaign debt was owed by the campaign committee, not by Leavitt personally. The matter did not alter the absence of personal campaign debt reported in her earlier financial disclosures.

Trump 2024 Campaign

After her congressional loss, Leavitt remained active in conservative politics and media. She worked as a spokesperson and communications figure for Trump-aligned political efforts before joining Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign as national press secretary.

In that role, Leavitt became one of the campaign's most visible defenders on television and in public statements. Her job placed her at the center of Trump's media strategy during the 2024 election and helped position her for one of the most prominent communications jobs in the federal government.

White House Press Secretary

In November 2024, President-elect Donald Trump named Leavitt as his White House press secretary. She formally became the 36th White House press secretary on January 20, 2025. At 27, she became the youngest person ever to hold the position.

Leavitt held her first White House briefing on January 28, 2025. From the start, her tenure reflected Trump's adversarial relationship with much of the mainstream press and his administration's effort to elevate conservative outlets, online media, bloggers, podcasters, and influencers. She announced that nontraditional media would have greater access to the White House briefing room.

Her time as press secretary became one of the most visible elements of the second Trump administration's communications operation. Leavitt served as the public face of daily administration messaging, defending Trump, his senior aides, and his policies from the briefing room podium and in frequent television appearances.

Her tenure also drew controversy. In 2025, the White House became involved in a high-profile dispute with the Associated Press over the administration's preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico. The AP sued after its reporters were restricted from certain White House events, and Leavitt was named as one of the defendants in her official capacity. A federal judge later ruled against the administration, which appealed.

In August 2026, Leavitt announced that she would step down at the end of the month. She had given birth to her second child, a daughter, in May and had recently returned to the White House following maternity leave. Leavitt said that after returning she concluded she could not devote the time and energy required by the press secretary job while also being the mother she wanted to be to her two young children.

Trump said he understood and respected the decision and announced that Leavitt would continue as one of his top outside advisers. He also said she would remain an influential Republican voice heading into the 2026 midterm elections. Her departure brought her tenure as press secretary to roughly 19 months.

Personal Life

In December 2023, Leavitt became engaged to real estate developer Nicholas Riccio, who is 32 years older than she is. The couple married in January 2025 at Wentworth By the Sea Country Club in Rye, New Hampshire, shortly before Trump's second inauguration.

Leavitt and Riccio have two children. Their son, Nicholas Robert Riccio, was born in 2024. Their second child, a daughter, was born in May 2026.

The birth of their daughter ultimately played a major role in Leavitt's decision to leave one of the most demanding communications jobs in American politics. After returning from maternity leave, she said she decided to step away from the White House press secretary position so she could spend more time with her young family while continuing to advise Trump from outside the administration.

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