Ernest Garcia II

Garcia operates DriveTime Automotive, the fourth-biggest used car retailer in the country, and he is separately the biggest shareholder of Carvana, a used car e-commerce company with a hot stock. He borrows big money from the nation’s largest banks, owns an apartment in Trump Tower, and has struck relationships with the likes of former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle and Mark Walter, one of the most powerful billionaires on Wall Street. Forbes estimates his net worth at $2.5 billion. DriveTime, which sells used cars and is in the sometimes-controversial business of making auto loans to low-income consumers, has seen its business grow 19% annually in the last decade. With shares of Carvana up 46% since its April IPO, Garcia’s stake in Carvana alone is worth $1.5 billion. With Garcia’s son, Garcia III, as CEO, Carvana has been promoted as the “Amazon of cars,” a Phoenix-based technology platform for buying and selling used cars. The son of a liquor store owner who was for a while also the mayor of Gallup, New Mexico, Garcia was on the golf team at the University of Arizona. He dropped out of school before graduating to become a stock broker and eventually turned to real estate development in Phoenix. One of his lenders was Lincoln Savings & Loan, which was controlled by Charles Keating. Its failure sparked a political scandal because of Keating’s connections and interactions with five U.S. senators. At 33, Garcia pleaded guilty in 1990 to a bank fraud charge related to his dealings with Lincoln Savings & Loan. He was sentenced to three years of probation, agreeing to cooperate with U.S. government lawyers prosecuting Keating. Both Garcia and his firm filed for bankruptcy protection. Garcia’s financial comeback started with Ugly Duckling, a rental car chain he bought for less than $1 million. After failing to turn the business around, Garcia merged it with a tiny finance company and built it as a seller and financer of used cars for people with poor credit histories. Garcia ended up with full control of Ugly Duckling, buying the shares he didn’t own for $18 million. At the time, the company had annual revenues of $600 million. He hired Raymond Fidel, who eventually became CEO, and renamed the company DriveTime Automotive. Fidel also pleaded guilty to a felony charge connected to the Keating scandal. DriveTime now generates annual revenues of some $2.5 billion and is extremely profitable.