When you run for a major public office position (Senate, House of Reps, President) in the United States, you are required to submit a public financial disclosure to clear up any potential conflicts of interest. Normally these disclosures are pretty bland since most people running for Congress are typically middle-class public servants who own very modest assets. On the other hand, when a celebrity runs for office, we get to see some really juicy financial revelations.
Celebrity medical expert turned Senate candidate Dr. Oz (full name: Mehmet Oz) recently filed his public financial disclosure. According to his financial disclosure, Dr. Oz and his wife Lisa control assets that are valued between…
$104 million to $422 million
Using that range, if Oz is elected to the Senate, he'd easily be one of the wealthiest members of Congress. If the high end of his estimate is accurate, he may be THE richest member of Congress.
The reason there's such a wide range is because candidates are allowed to use a wide range when they are valuing their assets. But we do know that at a MINIMUM Dr. Oz and his wife Lisa own $104 million worth of assets. An impressive portfolio for a TV doctor.
Where Does Dr. Oz Live?
Dr. Oz was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He went to high school in Delaware then got an undergraduate degree from Harvard. He did live in Pennsylvania while earning his MD and MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. Upon graduating from med school he moved to New York City to set up a practice and eventually become a TV star.
After everything you’ve just read, you might be asking yourself why Dr. Oz is running for Senate in Pennsylvania. Many Pennsylvanians have wondered the same. His wife was born and raised in Philadelphia. Her parents still live in Pennsylvania. This will be important in a moment.
For the last 20+ years Dr. Oz and his wife resided primarily in New Jersey. They also own a mansion in Florida.
Their longtime primary home is a 9,000-square-foot home in Cliffside Park, New Jersey estimated to be worth some $3 million today. They paid just $750,000 for the home in the summer of 2000.
In June 2018 they paid $18 million for a 12,000-square-foot ocean front home in Palm Beach, FL. Today this home is potentially worth as much as $30 million.
With an eye towards his Senate ambitions, in 2020 Dr. Oz moved into his wife’s parents’ home in Pennsylvania. Then in February of this year he did finally buy his own Pennsylvania residence, a 34-acre property not far from his in-laws which cost $3.1 million.
BUT! He doesn’t actually live in that new home yet. Not long after buying his own home, Dr. Oz started a major renovation project. So he’s back living with the in-laws while stumping around Pennsylvania.
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Strange Platforms
One of the core values of Oz's campaign has been his pledge to fight against what he calls the "Big Tech cartel," but his recent disclosures reveal tens of millions of dollars in investments in many of the same companies he’s vowing to take on, including Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.
A similar dynamic lies in Oz's pharma investments, including shares in Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, and Thermo Fisher Scientific, despite campaign vows to take down or act as a check on "Big Pharma" in Washington. Campaign spokesperson Brittany Yanick brushed off the significance of these investments like so:
"You can own stocks and still be critical of a company, look at Elon Musk."
The disclosure also revealed some debts: Between $8 million and $36 million, most of which is owed either to a family trust or to Oz's in-laws, while between $1 million and $5 million is debt to financial firm Charles Schwab.
