Dara Khosrowshahi Net Worth 2024: How the Uber CEO Made $370 Million

Dara Khosrowshahi is a world-famous Iranian American businessman who is currently the chief executive officer of the ride-hailing app Uber, following a stint as the CEO of Expedia Group.

Khosrowshahi has also invested in several start-up companies and has an estimated net worth of $370 million in 2024.

He was recently in the news for unlocking stock options worth $136 million after Uber’s market cap surpassed $120 billion.

Let’s dive into his career, learn more about his net worth, and get into his life story to see what insights we can learn from Khosrowshahi under whose leadership Uber has become the global leader in ride-hailing and a significant player in the food delivery market.

Dara Khosrowshahi’s Net Worth: Full Breakdown

Dara Khosrowshahi’s net worth is comprised of his ownership stake in Uber as well as Expedia Group where he worked before becoming joining Uber.

He also recently unlocked massive stock options at Uber Technologies Inc. added tremendously to his sprawling fortune.

In addition, he has invested in some startup companies whose valuation can only be estimated because they are privately owned companies. Nonetheless, we were able to build a solid estimate for Dara Khosrowshahi’s net worth, which is estimated at around $370 million in 2024.

Latest News & Controversies

One of the key highlights of Khosrowshahi’s leadership in 2024 has been Uber’s ongoing commitment to sustainability.

Uber has made strides toward its zero-emission goal, with over 140,000 electric vehicles (EVs) on its platform and more than 500 EV trips happening every minute.

However, Khosrowshahi acknowledges that these efforts are not enough to meet global climate targets, urging stronger collaboration from both the private sector and policymakers. To this end, Uber has invested $800 million to help drivers transition to EVs by offering discounts on EV purchases and charging solutions ​(Source: Observer).

Despite these positive efforts, Khosrowshahi has faced his share of controversies.

In 2023, his remarks downplaying the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a “mistake” sparked backlash, raising concerns about Uber’s ties to Saudi Arabia. Khosrowshahi later walked back his comments, but the incident left a lasting mark on his reputation.

Under Khosrowshahi’s leadership, Uber has also expanded beyond ride-hailing, focusing on services like Uber Eats and Uber Freight. This diversification has helped the company achieve profitability in 2023 and beyond, with a reported $1.4 billion in net profit.

6 Fun Facts About Dara Khosrowshahi

1. Family Background: Born in Iran and fled to the US after the Iranian Revolution.
2. Education: Holds a B.S. in electrical and electronics engineering from Brown University.
3. First CEO Role: Became the CEO of Expedia Group in 2005.
4. Joining Uber: Convinced by Daniel Ek of Spotify to join Uber in 2017.
5. Uber’s IPO: Led Uber through its initial public offering in 2019.
6. Political Activism: Known for his opposition to Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Dara Khosrowshahi: Early Life and Family

Dara Khosrowshahi was born on May 28, 1969, in a wealthy Iranian family that owned the Alborz Investment Company. However, the family’s wealth worked to its detriment and they had to leave the country before the Iranian revolution. The family first moved to Southern France and then migrated to the US.

Khosrowshahi’s childhood was far from perfect. His father was detained for six years in Iran when he went there to take care of his grandfather.

Khosrowshahi’s mother, who had never worked in Iran, had to take up a full-time job to support the family and Khosrowshahi’s education.

Nevertheless, Khosrowshahi persevered and was a bright student throughout his education. In 1991, Khosrowshahi graduated with a B.S. in electrical and electronics engineering from Brown University.

Dara Khorowshahi’s first wife was Kathleen Grant but the couple separated in 2008 and legally divorced the next year. Khosrowshahi has two children from his first marriage: a daughter named Chloe and a son named Alex.

In 2012, Khorowshahi married Sydney Shapiro, who is a former preschool teacher and actress. The couple have twin sons named Hugo Gubrit and Hayes Epic.

Many of Khosrowshahi’s relatives are prominent names in the business world.

His cousin Amir co-founded artificial intelligence company Nervana Systems, which Intel acquired for $408 million in 2016. One of his other cousins Farzad created Google’s online spreadsheet service.

His cousins Ali and Hadi Partovi are the cofounders of Code.org and sold their previous companies to Microsoft for millions of dollars.

The twin brothers were early investors in Airbnb, Facebook, Dropbox, and Uber. Golnar Khosrowshahi, who is another of Khorashahi’s cousins, founded the music publishing company Reservoir Media. Khosrowshahi’s uncle Hassan is a billionaire and is the founder of Future Shop.

Uber CEO’s Early Career

After his graduation, Khosrowshahi joined as an analyst at the investment bank Allen & Company. While working there, he had a chance to meet with billionaire Barry Diller and, in 1998, he started working with him.

First, he joined as senior vice president for strategic planning at Diller’s USA Networks and was later promoted to president. Subsequently, Khosrowshahi joined Diller’s holding company, IAC, as the chief financial officer.

IAC purchased Expedia Group in 2001, and in 2005 Khosrowshahi became its chief executive officer. Expedia Group is a travel technology company that owns and operates travel fare aggregators and travel metasearch engines.

Under his leadership, Expedia Group expanded to five dozen countries and acquired Travelocity, HomeAway, and Orbitz. Expedia witnessed significant growth and its gross value of travel bookings jumped fourfold while profitability soared two-fold under Khosrowshahi.

In 2015, Expedia Group awarded Khosrowshahi a nearly $90 million stock options plan which was contingent on him staying with the company until 2020.

Dara Khosrowshahi: Joining Uber for 9 Figures

Khosrowshahi was approached by a head hunter to join Uber but he wasn’t too keen to leave Expedia, especially given his relationship with Diller and his massive stock options plan. He was already among the highest-paid CEOs in the world at that time and he much of his stock had not fully vested. In turned out that it was Spotify’s cofounder, Daniel Ek, who finally convinced him to join Uber.

“I’m like dude why would I ever do that, like I’m happy. Why would I ever jump into that mess. And he [Daniel Ek] looks at me with those like piercing Scandinavian eyes. He’s like ‘Dara since when is life about having fun? It’s about having impact. This is important. You can do this’. And I’d had a couple of drinks, and the alcohol was flowing and we were having fun, and my wife says ‘yeah, you can do this!’ I’m like ‘Yeah, I could do this!'” said Khosrowshahi in an episode of the Acquired podcast.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Meg Whitman and General Electric’s Jeffery Immelt were also in the race to lead Uber after investors forced founder Travis Kalanick to resign from Uber over complaints of discrimination and sexual harassment at the company.

When Khosrowshahi left Expedia, he had a lot of unvested stock options. To compensate for his monetary loss, Uber offered Khosrowshahi – who was anyway among the highest-paid executives then – a fat compensation package that could put his overall incentive compensation up to $200 million.

Dara Khosrowshahi: Leading Uber Through Its IPO

When Khosrowshahi joined Uber, the company was facing a multitude of troubles including bad press about the work environment as well as its treatment of driver partners on the platform.

He went about an image makeover exercise and oversaw the IPO in 2019. The stock closed in the red on its first trading day and could not command the kind of valuations that investors were speculating about.

However, after a little over a year under Khosrowshahi’s watch, Uber started to grow tremendously fast and eventually became a $100 billion market cap behemoth. Notably, Uber Technologies became profitable in 2023, boasting a net profit of $1.4 billion. While it includes a $1.0 billion pre-tax earnings tailwind from unrealized gains in Uber’s equity investment, turning profitable was no mean feat for the ride-hailing company that had lost money every year throughout its entire existence.

Apart from being the CEO of Uber, Khosrowshahi has been associated with other companies and previously served as a board member of the New York Times Company, BET.com, Trivago, Tripadvisor, and Hotels.com.

Currently, he is on the board of directors of South East Asian ride-hailing giant Grab, Expedia Group, and Catalyst.

Dara Khosrowshahi Net Worth: Other Assets and Investments

Khosrowshahi has invested in 22 startup companies according to CB Insights. Here are some of the companies where the Uber CEO has invested.

• Gigs
• Dubs
• Zamp

He has also backed Arrived Homes, a kind of real estate investment crowdfunding platform that lets users buy some of the most iconic properties in the US, for as little as $100.

While we don’t know for sure if Khosrowshahi has invested in cryptocurrencies, he said that Uber would accept cryptos at some point in the future in a recent interview with Bloomberg. He said, “[Cryptocurrency] demonstrated to be a real store of value, but it has not yet demonstrated its utility in terms of efficient exchange of value.”

“Our average trip is a $15, $20 trip. So, we need crypto to become more efficient. We’re certainly looking at all choices,” added Khosrowshahi.

Dara Khosrowshahi Dabbles in Politics

Khosrowshahi is an active political actor who has donated to the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Victory Fund.

He was a vociferous critic of former president Donald Trump’s immigration policies and said, “The American dream is you come here, you believe in democracy, you believe in the Constitution, you work hard, you can make it.

That’s what makes this country great, and I think the president should be for that, not against it.”

Dara Khosrowshahi’s Controversies

Dara Khosrowshahi’s life is not free from controversies and he drew flak for calling journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s horrifying death a “mistake,” comparing it with the death of Elaine Herzberg who died from an Uber self-driving car.

Khosrowshahi was accused of appeasing the Saudi Government which owns a 3.5% stake in Uber Technologies through its public investment fund (PIF). PIF, incidentally, is a major investor in several US companies and is the largest shareholder of electric vehicle startup Lucid Motors.

Dara Khosrowshahi’s Awards and Accolades

Dara Khosrowshahi has earned many awards over his long and distinguished corporate career.

These include:

• In 2013, Ernst & Young named him Pacific Northwest Entrepreneur of the Year
• Khosrowshahi is among the US State Department’s “List of Prominent Iranian Americans”
• Khosrowshahi was on Carnegie’s 2018 list of “Great Immigrants”

What Can We Learn from Dara Khosrowshahi, the Uber CEO’s Life

Dara Khosrowshahi had humble beginnings when the family landed in the US.

However, with the help of his determination, he was able to make it big in the corporate world and became the CEO of both Expedia and the largest ride-hailing app. He has also been instrumental in pivoting Uber Technologies towards profitability and diversifying the company’s business model by adding food delivery.

Under his leadership, Uber exited several loss-making markets while selling verticals like self-driving and flying cars which burned a ton of cash while having poor prospects.

Khosrowshahi is known for his “customer obsession” which is something that a lot of companies should learn from. When Khosrowshahi joined Uber, the company was in very bad shape amid the negative media coverage. He helped in improving Uber’s image through his relentless focus on improving the customer experience.

Khosrowshahi was able to steer Uber to profitability and rebuild its brand.

While not among the initial frontrunners who had the backing of Uber’s CEO Kalanick, Khosrowshahi managed to stand on his own which can be tough when a company’s leadership transitions from the founder to the first generation of professional managers.

He also advises sticking around comparing it with compounding. According to Khosrowshahi, “It takes time to build your craft.” He added, “There’s a career compounding that’s magical.” His advice is quite meaningful, especially for those leaders who fancy overnight success at their companies.