Les Wexner, the Ohio billionaire and former CEO of Victoria's Secret, just found himself sitting pretty comfortably on a new $800 million AI treasure. And no, he’s not rolling out AI-powered lingerie that adjusts itself. Believe it or not, it all started with a modest $1 million seed investment into a company that barely anyone had heard of at the time.

Back in 2019, Wexner’s family trust took a gamble on Atlantic Crypto, a struggling crypto miners operating out of a New Jersey garage. Pretty good stereotype right? Well, fast forward to today, that company is now Coreweave, a $19 billion AI empire, and Wexner’s stake has exploded to a whopping $720 million. I did the math, and that’s a 71,900% gain. Next time the powerball comes up, it might be a good idea to have the oldman buy you some tickets for good luck.

(Source: Business Insider)

As soon as the news hit, a wealth management firm swooped in like a distant relative who just found out you inherited a million bucks. So what’s the accusation? Florence Capital Advisors is demanding a $6.9 million fee, claiming their "brilliant" advice led Wexner to invest in Coreweave. Are they also taking credit for when their other clients invested and lost everything? I doubt it. Honestly, it would be hilarious if those clients who lost money from their recommendations joined Wexner and countersued.

Regardless of what you or I think, Florence Capital is adamant they’re owed a fee, bragging about an “almost unimaginable 30,986% return” from Wexner selling $71 million of Coreweave stock in November 2023. That sale, combined with his remaining stake, brings the total haul from this investment to nearly $800 million. That takes the “rich only get richer” phrase to a whole new level.

Coreweave, now a titan in the AI cloud industry with heavyweight partners like Nvidia and Microsoft, recently snagged $7.5 billion in debt from Blackstone and another $1.1 billion in equity to supercharge its data center network.

Wexner’s initial investment was through Greg Hersch of Florence Capital, who put in $1 million during Coreweave’s seed round. They doubled down with an additional $600,000 in stock from the Series A round, and then some more through a convertible note. Of course, like any old billionaire, all of this was tucked away in a trust for Wexner’s four children.

(Source: The Wexner Foundation)

After getting the boot from Victoria’s Secret in 2020 due to his suspiciously cozy ties with Jeffrey Epstein, Les Wexner quickly realized that swinging a tennis racket or a golf club just wasn’t his style. Instead, when he's not busy on Reddit or turning $1 million investments into $800 million, he's been wheeling and dealing land around his New Albany, Ohio home to tech giants like Google and Meta, raking in a cool $450 million. 

And he’s far from done—his real estate company, the New Albany Company, still holds about $850 million worth of farmland, setting him up for even more lucrative deals down the road. In fact, a recent investigation revealed that Wexner played a key role in landing a $20 billion Intel chip factory in New Albany. He pocketed an estimated $35 million from that deal and is now busy developing nearby land to support Intel's suppliers, with more acquisitions to come.

Stock.News has positions in Microsoft, Google, Intel, and Meta.