How Ashton Kutcher Achieved a Net Worth of $200 Million

For those who have lost track of Ashton Kutcher, this year he hit the big 4-0. Most people remember him from replacing the oft disgraced Charlie Sheen in the TV series “Two and a Half Men” but many do not know he dropped out of college to begin a modeling career in his 20s. (He was a biochem major.) That was the beginning of his Accumulating Net Worth tour, as he went from Iowa to New York, from modeling to acting, and finally from New York to Hollywood. The latest estimates (as of 2019) are that he has amassed $200 million along the way.

Early Years

Kutcher was born February 7th, 1978, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His mother Diane worked at Proctor & Gamble, and his father Larry was a factory worker.  Kutcher has two siblings; an older sister Tausha, and a twin brother Michael, who has cerebral palsy. Michael is a spokesperson for the advocacy organization Reaching for the Stars. Ashton kept himself very busy growing up, mainly because of being stressed by his brother’s condition. He attended Washington High School in Cedar Rapids for a year, before moving to Homestead and attending Clear Creek Amana High School. As a teenager, Kutcher was already interesting in acting. He was also depressed from his parent’s divorce when he was 16, and shortly ended up down the wrong path. He was convicted of third-degree burglary, and sentenced to 180 hours of community service.

Television and Movie Career

His role in “That 70’s show” paid him $750,000 per episode, and it is his many television roles that have been the foundation for his continually increasing net worth. He got maximum net worth notoriety by being the highest paid actor at the time, making $800,000 per episode to continue keeping the very popular “Two and a Half Men” show alive. He was able to do that from 2011 through 2015, upping his net worth more than $90 million at the end of his stint. He was host of MTV’s hidden camera show, Punk’d from 2003 through 2007 where he made another $11 million.

His movie career has a relatively small number of credits, with his two highest grossing movies being “Cheaper by the Dozen” at $138,614,544 and “Valentine’s Day” at $110,485,654. Still, he apparently doesn’t have to have box office blockbusters to be a valuable movie asset for producers. He earned just under $25 million for his starring role in “Jobs” (the story of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs) and another $11 for “No Strings Attached.”

But Kutcher has a keen business and investment sense that has significantly added to his net worth. Take his choice of Uber for example, which he invested a cool $500,000 back in 2011. His return on investment has been at least 100 times his initial cash layout. The natural business move to maximize his business acumen was to start his own investment firm, A-Grade Investments. Add other high tech companies including Skype, Airbnb, Spotify, Pinterest, and Shazam to his investment instincts, and it’s not hard to see how that $200 million total net worth has been achieved. But Kutcher is not only investing his own money. A select group of billionaires have marked Kutcher as one of the best venture capitalist investors in the world today. Given his own success, it’s not hard to see why. If the rule is to invest other people’s money to get rich, then Kutcher has made it an art form.

Investment Prowess

We need to pause here to mention that he went through a divorce with actress Demi Moore in 2013, which is enough to sidetrack most men's net worth scale. However, it was that same year he landed the "Two and a Half Men" gig, so even that didn't slow him up. He owns a vacation home in Carpentaria, California that is worth at least $10 million, and his Beverly Hills mansion has a current estimated value of $10.2 million. He has trinkets such as a $200,000 Ferrari and a $15,000 Harley Davidson to play with in his free time.

Being an actor and famous high tech investor has enhanced his marketing brand, and he has not passed up on the opportunity to add to his income by accepting endorsements that have bumped up his net worth by $3.5 million. Social media is another way to take advantage of his brand, and having more than 19 million Twitter followers he created A-Plus (naturally), a news and entertainment station that has brought in another $3.5 million.

You need to know that these are only the highlights of Kutcher’s staircase journey to reaching his total of $200 million. Popular business and investment magazines such as Forbes have done entire articles on how Ashton Kutcher has one of the best high tech investment minds in the world. Others have analyzed in detail how he has left his acting career behind to be his own boss of A-Grade Investments. Most people will remember him as an actor and TV show star, but people who have serious money to invest will remember him as a savvy and knowledgeable investor.

Inspiring Ashton Kutche Quotes

• “The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart. And being thoughtful. And being generous. Everything else is crap! I promise you! It's just crap that people try to sell to you to make you feel like less. So don't buy it. Be smart, be thoughtful, and be generous.”
• “Be happy, but never be satisfied”
• “Vulnerability is the essence of romance. It's the art of being uncalculated, the willingness to look foolish, the courage to say, 'This is me, and I'm interested in you enough to show you my flaws with the hope that you may embrace me for all that I am but, more important, all that I am not.”
• “Luck looks a lot like work.”
• “I'm continually trying to make choices that put me against my own comfort zone. As long as you're uncomfortable, it means you're growing.”