Getty JD Vance's net worth was boosted by book sales.
JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, boosted his net worth by more than $800,000 due to his successful book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” and that doesn’t count any money earned by the Netflix movie and speakers’ appearances based on it, according to Business Insider.
Vance’s U.S. Senate biography touts the Ohio Republican’s authorship of the bestselling book “Hillbilly Elegy” and its subsequent adaption as a Netflix movie.
Celebrity Net Worth put Vance’s net worth for 2024 at about $5 million.
Vance’s financial disclosures show that he earned $347,752 in 2020 in royalties from “Hillbilly Elegy” publisher Harper Collins, and another $475,380 from royalties in 2021, Business Insider reported. According to The Cincinnati Enquirer, those royalties were just from the book and didn’t include the Netflix movie based on it, which came out in 2020.
The Clermont County Democratic Party accused Vance of failing to list how much money he made from the Netflix adaption of the book.
The book “Hillbilly Elegy” focused on the “struggles of America’s white working class,” according to its Amazon.com page.
“From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a powerful account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class. Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis – that of white working-class Americans,” the page says.
JD Vance Has Earned Money From More Than His Bestselling Book
GettyJD Vance and Trump.
Vance has reaped a fortune from other ventures, however. “J.D. Vance is a venture capitalist, author, and Republican politician,” Celebrity Net Worth reported, and The National Taxpayers Union Foundation put his U.S. Senate salary at $174,000. His 2022 financial disclosure report listed more than 100 investments that also contributed to his net worth, Celebrity Net Worth reported.
According to Open Secrets.org, Vance is not even close to being among the richest Senators.
According to Politico, Vance worked for “Mithril Capital, a venture capital firm run by the silicon-valley scion Peter Thiel.”
Vance’s U.S. Senate biography prominently mentions the book and movie, saying that Vance “wrote a bestselling book, Hillbilly Elegy, which was turned into a Netflix movie. He also started a business dedicated to growing jobs and opportunity in the American heartland.”
Trump mentioned “Hillbilly Elegy” when he announced on Truth Social that Vance was his choice as vice presidential running mate on July 15 at the Republican National Convention.
JD Vance Earned Thousands of Dollars From Speaking Appearances After He Became a Bestselling Author
Vance also earned thousands of dollars discussing the 2016 book “The Hillbilly Elegy” on college campuses, according to The Associated Press.
Vance “visited at least 18 universities to give graduation speeches, lectures or political talks” in the two years after his book came out, AP reported, adding that he earned more than $70,000 for those appearances.
The book was made into a Hollywood movie by the same name that starred actresses Glenn Close and Amy Adams, according to Netflix.
“J.D.’s book, ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ became a Major Best Seller and Movie, as it championed the hardworking men and women of our Country,” Trump wrote.
“To understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart,” Vance wrote in Hillbilly Elegy, according to Politico. This Scots-Irish legacy entailed “many good traits … but also many bad ones. We do not like outsiders or people who are different from us, whether the difference lies in how they look, how they act, or, most importantly, how they talk.”