Day: September 19, 2025

The Tesla CEO and the world’s richest man has founded multiple schools over the years. His latest, a private preschool called Ad Astra, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2025, according to its website.

Ad Astra is in Bastrop, Texas, close to Starbase, the city Musk founded near his SpaceX complex. The school is accepting applications for kids between the ages of three and nine. It’s not a Montessori school but draws on similar principles, focusing on child-centered learning, according to the website. The curriculum focuses on STEM subjects — fitting since Ad Astra is Latin for “to the stars.”

According to the school’s site, Ad Astra will subsidize tuition in the opening year and will later cost around as much as local private schools. A permit from the Texas Health and Human Services Department allowing Ad Astra to open in 2025 specified that it can enroll 21 students in its first year. The application materials, first reported by Bloomberg, said the school aims to expand into a STEM-focused university.

None of the application materials to the state include Musk’s name, but his foundation donated $100 million to the preschool, according to tax filings, as BI previously reported.

In 2014, Musk opened a different school in California named Ad Astra for his children and the kids of SpaceX employees. That venture evolved into a largely online school called Astra Nova.

According to its website, Astra Nova serves around 300 students between the ages of 10 and 14. Class offerings on the site range from special relativity to songwriting to ethical hacking.

Musk was worth $480.5 billion as of September 19, according to Forbes.

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, created The Primary School in 2016 through their philanthropy, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The tuition-free private school said in April 2025 that it would close by the end of the 2026 academic year.

The Primary School is a tuition-free private school with locations in East Palo Alto and East Bay, California. According to its website, it serves hundreds of students and works to more closely connect parents, teachers, and medical and mental health professionals.

The school’s website highlights diversity, equity, and inclusion, and its closure was announced at the same time some of Zuckerberg’s other ventures rolled back DEI efforts. Meta dropped many of its DEI initiatives in January 2025, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative ended its own DEI efforts one month later.

A message announcing the closure on the school website says that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will invest $50 million in surrounding communities in the coming years, including savings plans for soon-to-be former students and “transition specialists” for families.

Zuckerberg and Chan ran into issues with another school they ran in California, as the New York Times first reported. A spokesperson for Palo Alto, Meghan Horrigan-Taylor, confirmed to BI that the city received a code violation complaint at the property “regarding use as a private school without a conditional use permit.” She said the city no longer thinks the school is operating at that location.

A spokesperson for Zuckerberg and Chan told BI that it is not a private school but a homeschooling operation that began during the pandemic. State affidavits don’t allow for a distinction between a homeschool and a typical private school, they said, and added that parents teach many of the subjects, the spokesperson said.

Zuckerberg and Chan plan to move the children to a location outside of their home, according to the spokesperson, who said city officials have confirmed that homeschooling is allowed in residential zones in Palo Alto.

“They value being members of the community and have taken a number of steps above and beyond any local requirements to avoid disruption in the neighborhood,” the spokesperson said of Zuckerberg and Chan.

Zuckerberg was worth $266.8 billion as of September 19, according to Forbes.

Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos founded a whole network of preschools called Bezos Academy. He started the schools through the Bezos Day One Fund, and the first location opened in 2020.

Bezos Academy runs “Montessori-inspired preschools in under-resourced communities,” according to its website. Bezos attended a Montessori school himself.

The schools are tuition-free and serve children between the ages of three and five. The website lists schools in Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Texas, and Washington.

Bezos was worth $244.8 billion as of September 19, according to Forbes.

Unlike the other billionaires on this list, businesswoman Laurene Powell Jobs hasn’t started one individual school but an independent nonprofit that distributes money to high schools across the country. According to its website, XQ Institute is “rethinking high school ” and is based on the idea that the rapidly changing workplace and technological world demand a new educational approach.

Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, co-founded XQ Institute in 2015. Powell Jobs’ organization, Emerson Collective, has invested $300 million in XQ Institute, which has also granted grants to schools across the country. However, as BI previously reported, XQ Institute has encountered some controversies over its data and efficacy in recent years.

Powell Jobs was worth $13 billion as of September 19, according to Forbes.

Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is reportedly involved with Alpha School, a network of private institutions embracing AI and rejecting hot-button social issues. According to its website, Alpha School uses AI to help students complete learning for their core subjects in “just two hours daily,” letting them focus on life skills in the afternoon. The listed life skills workshops range from “Startup Founder” to “AI Teaching Assistant” to “Friendship Coordinator.”

While not a founder of the school, Ackman is something of an unofficial ambassador to Alpha School, sources told The Wall Street Journal. A representative for Alpha School told Business Insider that Ackman does not have a formal role. Ackman is hosting an event at his Hamptons home in late August featuring the Alpha School co-founder and other guests, the spokesperson said.

The school’s co-founder told the Journal that Alpha School tries to keep social issues out of the classroom. Ackman is a vocal critic of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and has criticized universities like Harvard over their policies around antisemitism.

Ackman posted on about the school on X after the Journal reported on his involvement, calling it “the first truly breakthrough innovation in K-12 education that I have seen since the Kipp Academy.”

Alpha School has locations in Texas, Florida, and California, and is opening more schools across the nation soon, according to its website. Tuition ranges from $40,000 to $75,000 depending on location. The school hires “guides” rather than teachers, and the co-founder told the Journal that most don’t have teaching degrees. On its website, the school says it selects guides “from top universities across the country with competitive backgrounds in fields like tech and start-ups.”

The school serves kindergarten through 12th grade, though it notes on its site that “Alpha works in levels that are based on specific capabilities as opposed to traditional grade models.”

Ackman was worth $9.4 billion as of September 19, according to Forbes.

Ken Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel, has thrown a lot of money behind schools. The website for Griffin Catalyst, the “civic engagement initiative” the billionaire launched in 2023, lists education as one of its priorities.

He’s donated twice to Success Academy, a network of charter schools based in New York City — $10 million in 2014 and $25 million in 2023, according to a spokesperson. The network of schools announced in July 2025 that it’s expanding into Florida, and its founder told Bloomberg that it intends to open 40 schools there over 10 years.

Griffin has donated hundreds of millions to universities, including Harvard and the University of Chicago, and established a scholarship fund at Miami Dade College. He’s also committed $24 million to expand access to math tutoring in the country, the spokesperson said.

In September 2025, Griffin partnered with the Bezos Family Foundation on a $7 million donation to bring more math tutoring to public schools in Miami, per Bloomberg. The money will fund a three-year pilot program by New Classrooms, a nonprofit based in New Jersey that focuses on math skills for struggling students. Griffin attended public school in Florida and has become a major philanthropist in the area since relocating his hedge fund and trading empire to Miami.

Griffin was worth $50.7 billion as of September 19, according to Forbes.

Oprah Winfrey opened the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, a boarding school in South Africa, in 2007. More than 525 girls have graduated, according to the Oprah Foundation website.

The school serves students from 8th to 12th grade and has a 1% acceptance rate, per the Oprah Foundation. Oprah posted on Instagram about attending graduation at the school in 2024, saying in the caption that she had been to 22 of the ceremonies.

Oprah was worth $3.2 billion as of September 19, according to Forbes.

Los Angeles Lakers star Lebron James founded a school in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, in 2018, in partnership with the local public school system. The LeBron James Family Foundation backed the I Promise School, which is “dedicated to those students who are already falling behind and in danger of falling through the cracks,” according to its website.

As a public school, I Promise is funded by the Akron Public Schools district, but receives addition funds from James’ foundation, according to Case Western University. It serves students between first and eighth grade and provides wraparound services, including a longer school day.

James was worth $1.3 billion as of September 19, according to Forbes.

Are you a parent at one of these schools, or have you considered enrolling your child? Contact this reporter via email at atecotzky@insider.com or Signal at alicetecotzky.05. Use a personal email address and a non-work device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.