Art Bilger Net Worth 2026: Apollo Co-Founder and WorkingNation

No reputable outlet has published a net worth figure for Art Bilger. He is a Los Angeles investor who co-founded Apollo, the private equity firm, founded the venture firm Shelter Capital Partners, and started WorkingNation, a nonprofit media project about the future of jobs. The $19.5 million figure this page used to show had no source and has been removed. Given his career, that figure also looks far too low to be believable.

What is Art Bilger's net worth?

There is no reliable estimate. Bilger is not on the Forbes or Bloomberg rich lists, and he has not disclosed his holdings. His wealth comes from three parts of his career:

• Apollo – Adam Mendler's Thirty Minute Mentors podcast introduced him in 2021 as a co-founder of Apollo, which then managed close to $90 billion.
• Media – Spectrum News reported that he made his money investing in media and technology companies and that he sold a successful media company before turning to WorkingNation.
• Venture capital – The Jewish Journal described Shelter Capital Partners as a venture capital firm he founded, based in Westwood, Los Angeles. The Mendler podcast credits him with an investment in Akamai Technologies.

He has also spent heavily on philanthropy. The Jewish Journal reported in 2016 that he and his wife had put millions of dollars into WorkingNation.

Art Bilger's yearly income and salary

His income is not public. The old version of this page claimed $1.2 million a year, with monthly and daily breakdowns, but gave no source. Returns from private equity and venture capital come unevenly, through fund profits and exits, and none of Bilger's personal returns have been reported.

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Career

On the Mendler podcast, Bilger said he started on Wall Street at 16, as a summer runner at a securities firm where his father had found him a job. A high school guidance counselor steered him to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. During college he spent a summer at Chase Manhattan Bank. His first full-time job was at Drexel Burnham, working for Michael Milken.

• Age 16 – Summer runner at a New York securities firm.
• Wharton School – Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Drexel Burnham – First full-time job, working for Michael Milken.
• Apollo – Co-founds the private equity firm.
• Shelter Capital Partners – Founds a venture capital firm in Los Angeles.
• 2013 – Starts working on the idea that became WorkingNation, after asking Lawrence Summers a question about structural unemployment at a Deutsche Bank dinner.
• 2016 – WorkingNation releases its first animated explainer, distributed through CNN Money.
• May 2023 – Receives the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
• Summer 2025 – Joins the board of Jobs for the Future (JFF).
• November 2025 – Donates WorkingNation's content and digital properties to JFF.

WorkingNation

WorkingNation grew out of Bilger's concern that technology was eliminating jobs faster than workers could retrain. The Jewish Journal said he pointed to driverless vehicles as an example of how a large occupation could disappear quickly. He took the view that the problem needed a public awareness campaign, and he built WorkingNation as a media outlet that makes videos, articles, town halls and documentaries about work and training. His two daughters worked on its research arm in its early years.

Spectrum News reported in 2023 that WorkingNation's documentary Glory in Overcoming followed three single mothers retraining for tech jobs through a Goodwill program. In November 2025, Jobs for the Future announced in a press release that Bilger had given it all of WorkingNation's content and digital properties. JFF used them to launch The Studio at JFF, a brand studio for education and workforce groups.

Philanthropy

Besides WorkingNation, ProPublica's nonprofit database lists the Bilger Foundation, a Los Angeles trust with Arthur H. Bilger as trustee, which received its tax exemption in December 1991. The 2023 Ellis Island Medal of Honor recognized his public work.

Family

Art Bilger's wife

The old version of this page said Bilger was married to Cheryl Pawelski. That was wrong. According to the Jewish Journal, his wife is Dahlia Bilger, and the couple funded WorkingNation together. The same article says they have two daughters, Sabrine and Eve.

Education

Bilger went to a public high school and then to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, according to his own account on the Mendler podcast. The old page also listed an MBA from the University of Chicago. We could not confirm that, so it has been removed.

Age, height and weight

His date of birth is not published in the sources we reviewed, so we do not give an age. The age of 62, height and weight on the old page had no source. All three have been removed.

See also: Bill George Net Worth

Why no figure is given

Private equity founders' wealth sits in fund stakes, carried interest and private holdings that are rarely disclosed, especially for founders who left a firm long before it went public. Without a reported valuation or a rich-list review, any number for Bilger would be invented. The public record does show a Wharton-trained financier who helped start one of the world's largest private equity firms and later put much of his time and money into workforce issues.