Carl Icahn
(Michael Nagle/Getty Images)
One of the first to win the epithet “corporate raider,” the Princeton-educated medical school dropout remains feisty, provocative, and respected for his Warren Buffett-like results. The racehorse owner (whose Meadow Star won the Breeder Cup in 1990) has a fortune estimated at $20 billion, built with hundreds of positions in companies as wide-ranging as Yahoo!, Motorola, RJR Nabisco, Blockbuster, Time Warner, and Biogen, as well as a number of oil companies and Las Vegas casinos. His latest move: A position in Dell to head off its going-private deal.
