Michael Saul Dell (born February 23, 1965) is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. He is the founder and CEO of Dell Inc., one of the world’s leading sellers of personal computers (PCs). He was ranked the 41st richest person in the world on 2012 Forbes list of billionaires, with a net worth of US$22.4 billion as of December 2014.

In 2011, his 243.35 million shares of Dell stock were worth $3.5 billion, giving him 12% ownership of the company. His remaining wealth of roughly $10 billion is invested in other companies and is managed by a firm whose name, MSD Capital, incorporates Dell's initials. On January 5, 2013 it was announced that Michael Dell had bid to take Dell Inc. private for $24.4 billion in the biggest management buyout since the Great Recession. Dell Inc. officially went private on October 29, 2013.

Early life

Michael Dell was born in 1965 in Houston, to a Jewish family whose surname reflects the translation into English of the original German/Yiddish Thal ("valley" or "dale [q.v.]"; modern common-noun spelling Tal) upon the family's immigration to the United States. The son of Lorraine Charlotte (née Langfan), a stockbroker, and Alexander Dell, an orthodontist, Michael Dell attended Herod Elementary School in Houston. In a bid to enter business early, he applied to take a high school equivalency exam at age eight. In his early teens, he invested his earnings from part-time jobs in stocks and precious metals.