A former presidential contender, Tulsi Gabbard, one of the most instantly recognisable names in American politics today, has seen her net worth grow almost as remarkably as her political graph.
Gabbard is the director of national intelligence (DNI) in the second cabinet of US President Donald Trump. This is the highest office Gabbard has held in her long political career. In that position, she is the highest-ranking Hindu American in the US government.
She began her career as the youngest member of the Hawai’i House of Representatives from the 42nd district when she was elected in 2002. After completing her first term, she joined American forces in Iraq as a member of the Hawai’i Army National Guard. She was transferred to the US Army Reserve in 2020 and is currently an officer of the rank of lieutenant colonel in the force.
A Democrat for most of her political career, Gabbard had a brief tenure as a member of the Honolulu City Council before winning the congressional seat from Hawai’i’s 2nd district in 2013 to become the first Samoan American and Hindu American member of US Congress. She won three more terms from the same seat before leaving the Congress in 2021.
Following a failed presidential bid as a Democrat in 2020, Gabbard quit her party, calling it an “elitist cabal of warmongers” and “woke” ideologues. She began supporting leaders of the Republican party while being an independent, later joining the party.
Trump named Gabbard as his pick for DNI about a week after his election victory on 5 November 2024. Her nomination was confirmed by the Senate in February 2025 in a 52-48 vote.
Tulsi Gabbard: Political life, net worth and more
Tulsi Gabbard’s journey from being a Democrat to a Republican
In 2013, while still a congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard was made the vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Her run-ins with the party began after this appointment.
Gabbard strongly backed independent senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 US elections. Sanders, who was running with some support from the Democratic camp, was pitted against longtime Democratic leader Hillary Clinton. The congresswoman resigned in 2016 as the DNC vice-chair to formally support Sanders and was named his running mate in one of the primaries. Clinton eventually won the primaries, but lost to Trump in the presidential elections.
Four years later, Gabbard launched her own presidential bid in 2020 as a member of the Democratic party. Her sharp criticism of the then-California senator Kamala Harris, who was also running for president from the party, in the second Democratic presidential primary debate was widely praised by her supporters and many progressives at the time.
Nevertheless, there was intense negative press coverage around Gabbard. Clinton called her the “favorite of the Russians” without naming her, which was criticised by Democrats including Sanders and Andrew Yang. Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit against Clinton claiming that she suffered damages “estimated to exceed USD 50 million” and that Clinton “had no basis for making her false assertions about Tulsi.” But Gabbard later dropped the case.
Gabbard dropped out of the race in March 2020 and endorsed the then-former US vice president Joe Biden, who picked Harris as his running mate. She later revealed that the party did not invite her to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) despite her being one of the seven candidates who earned delegates during the presidential primaries and was the only non-white candidate among them.
The elections saw a Democratic victory against Trump, leading to Biden becoming the 46th US president and Harris the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected vice-president in more than two centuries of American democracy.
More than a year later, on 11 October 2022, Gabbard officially announced her departure from the Democratic party. Things proceeded rapidly on the political front and she was named the honorary co-chair of Trump’s transition team alongside Republican vice presidential contender JD Vance, former Democrat Robert F Kennedy Jr (RFK Jr), and Trump family members.
Some time later, on 22 October 2024, she formally joined the Republican party. Trump named Gabbard as his pick for DNI about a week after his election victory over Harris on 5 November 2024.
What is the net worth of Tulsi Gabbard?
The net worth of Tulsi Gabbard ranges from just over USD 56.5 million to as high as USD 127 million. The higher side of her net worth is when the value of the properties owned by her are considered at their upper range.
How much does Tulsi Gabbard earn every year?
Much of what Tulsi Gabbard earned in 2024 is available in public domain due to the personal financial disclosure report she filed with the US Office of Government Ethics. News of her filing, which was done in August 2024, became public in January 2025 ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing for the position of Director of National Intelligence in Trump’s cabinet.
Based on the filing, her overall income for the year 2024 was reported between USD 1.5 to USD 2.2 million.
Her earnings from business, speaking engagements and book deal
Tulsi Gabbard earned a large part of her 2024 income from her company, Tulsi Media LLC, according to her disclosure report. The company is based out of Honolulu, Hawai’i. Gabbard is listed as its owner. She declared in the financial disclosure report that the company will be made inactive upon her confirmation, and will remain so till she serves the federal government.
The company, which covers her media, digital media, public speaking and book royalties, reported an income of USD 373,872.
The second-highest single source of earnings for Gabbard was the USD 297,500 advance she received for her book For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind (2024). The advance came from Regnery Publishing, a division of Skyhorse Publishing — the publisher of the book. In May 2024, For Love of Country reached No.4 on the New York Times Bestseller list in the Hardcover Nonfiction category.
During the period covered under the filing, Gabbard also appeared as a media contributor or independent contractor for Fox News Network, LLC and American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). Fox paid her USD 199,500 while the latter paid USD 119,370.
Next on the list were her numerous public engagements as part of Trump’s presidential campaign. Her speaking engagements, mostly at rallies or gatherings that were either Republican or caucuses supporting Trump, were held between 17 February 2024 and 25 September 2024. She undertook 13 such public engagements, earning a total of USD 170,130. The earnings ranged from as low as USD 3,000 for addressing a gathering at Liberty University to USD 30,000 for a Republican party rally at Laramie County.
Additionally, Gabbard earned USD 36,922 as business income from her media production company named TOA Studios LLC. She also earned ad revenue of USD 3,567 in total for her podcast, The Tulsi Gabbard Show, from its distributors, RedCircle Technologies, Inc and BENT Pixels.
The total income, thus, was just over USD 1.2 million.
Stocks, cryptocurrencies and other avenues
According to the filing, Tulsi Gabbard has investments in four major cryptocurrencies — Bitcoin, Cronos, Solana and Ethereum. Except Bitcoin, each had a reported value between USD 1,001 and USD 15,000. The value of her Bitcoin holdings was listed between USD 15,000 and USD 50,000.
Gabbard also has investments in several Enhanced Index Funds (EIF), including Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund ETF Shares (VXUS), iShares Core S&P Small-Cap ETF (IJR), Invesco S&P 500 Momentum ETF (SPMO), Invesco S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility ETF (SPHD) and USAA Nasdaq-100 Index Fund (USNQX), among others, each valued between USD 1,001 and USD 50,000. She reported an income ranging from USD 201 to USD 1,000 from three such funds.
Gabbard also earned dividends between USD 1,000 to USD 2,500 from Texas 3-Pack LLC (Real Estate Investment Fund) valued up to USD 100,000. She reported cash in two banks ranging from USD 1,001 to USD 50,000, one of which earned her interest between USD 201 and USD 1,000.
The Republican leader owns stocks in Tim Cook-led Apple, Jensen Huang’s NVIDIA, Elon Musk’s Tesla and Chris Pavlovski’s conservative YouTube challenger Rumble. The last two of her stocks were of the highest value, going up to USD 250,000 each.
Depending on her exact investments in the funds and the stocks, Gabbard has anywhere between USD 350,000 to just over USD 1 million in these assets.
Properties that Tulsi Gabbard owns
Tulsi Gabbard owns three houses, according to the filing. All three are apartments, and all are located in Texas. Two of these, Stonecreek Apartments in Katy and Treehouse Apartments in Austin, were valued at a minimum of USD 25 million going up to USD 50 million each in Gabbard’s filing.
The valuation of the third, Waterstone Place Apartments in Stafford, was reported between USD 5 million and USD 25 million. However, according to the filing, the value of the properties does not represent their actual investment made by her.
Gabbard also has a mortgage on a personal residence amounting up to USD 500,000. The mortgage was incurred in 2024.
The total value of the three properties thus ranges from USD 55 million to USD 125 million.
Is Tulsi Gabbard still associated with her businesses and other interests?
Till before her confirmation, Tulsi Gabbard was officially associated with the following organisations, other than her two businesses, in different capacities:
- American Center for Law and Justice
- Minnect
- We Must Protect
- We Must Protect Action Fund
- Defend Freedom, Inc.
- Team Tulsi
- For Love of Country Inc
- Our Freedom, Our Future
On 15 January 2025, Gabbard wrote a declaration to the US Office of Government Ethics announcing her intent to step down from all the organisations if she was confirmed for the position of Director of National Intelligence. She had already resigned from her position at Fox News Network before the hearing.
As for her companies, she said that Tulsi Media LLC “will cease engaging in any business” upon her confirmation and that she’ll resign from her positions with TOA Studios LLC and transfer her entire interest in the company to her husband.
Gabbard also declared that she’ll divest her interests in all her cryptocurrencies, crypto wallet and stocks of the four major companies she holds within 90 days of her confirmation.
She will, however, continue to be entitled to royalties from her book and ad revenue from re-transmissions of her podcast, though she will no longer be a part of The Tulsi Gabbard Show as long as she holds the office of DNI.
What is the salary of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence?
The office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was created in 2004 during the first administration of US President George W Bush. Prior to its creation, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) served as the de facto head of the US government intelligence community. It was made a cabinet-level office in the first term of Donald Trump.
The DNI is an extremely powerful cabinet-level US government official. The heads of all American intelligence agencies at any level, including CIA chief John Ratcliffe, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) chief Kash Patel and several others report to the DNI. The DNI, on the other hand, reports to the US president.
The DNI is a Level I position of the Executive Schedule of the US. As the highest of the five levels, the salary is also the highest among all the highest-ranked officials in the executive branch of the federal government. Since January 2025, the DNI is entitled to receive a salary of USD 250,600 per annum, which means that Gabbard is entitled to the amount till she holds office.
She served as a member of the US House of Representatives from Hawai’i’s 2nd district from January 2013 to January 2021. As a US congressperson, she was entitled to an annual pay of USD 174,000 per annum for the nine years she held office.
Is Tulsi Gabbard richer than Donald Trump, Joe Biden and other prominent leaders?
Tulsi Gabbard has earned quite a decent sum in the last one year, as the filing reveals, but she is not richer than Donald Trump, who is a billionaire by net worth. In fact, Trump is the only billionaire president in US history with a net worth of around USD 4.6 billion, as on 11 March 2025.
On the other hand, former US president Joe Biden reportedly had a net worth of around USD 10 million, according to a June 2024 Forbes report. Kamala Harris, the former vice president, had a net worth of USD 8 million, according to Forbes, in 2024.
What about the wealth of RFK Jr? Gabbard and RFK Jr were both members of the Democratic party before joining the second Trump administration, the latter as the secretary of health and human services.
But unlike Gabbard, RFK Jr, who is a member of the prestigious Kennedy family, is still an independent and not a member of the Republican party. Though the overall net worth of the Kennedy family is around USD 1.2 billion, his net worth is around USD 15 million, including the assets held by his wife, Cheryl Hines.
What is Tulsi Gabbard’s family background?
Born on 12 April 1981, Tulsi Gabbard is the fourth of the five children of Mike Gabbard and his wife Carol. She has three older brothers – Bhakti, Narayan and Jai – and a younger sister, Vrindavan.
Gabbard was born in Leloaloa, Maʻopūtasi County on the island of Tutuila of American Samoa. The family had been living in Hawai’i before her birth and moved back in 1983. Her father, Mike, was an educationist before turning to politics later in life. He has been serving as the Hawai’i State Senator for District 21 from the Democratic party since 2006. Gabbard’s mother, Carol, grew up in Michigan.
A 2019 profile about Gabbard by the New York Magazine indicates that the family turned to Hinduism before her birth under the influence of Chris Butler, better known as Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa — the founder of the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF) movement.
She was married to Eduardo Tamayo from 2002 when she was 21 years old. They divorced in 2006 with Gabbard later saying that her divorce illustrates “the stresses war places on military spouses and families”.
Abraham Williams, whom she married in 2015, is her second husband. Williams is a cinematographer, whose income was reported in the range of USD 50,001 and USD 100,000 in Gabbard’s filing. With Gabbard’s new role as DNI, Williams will be the owner of TOA Studios LLC. Gabbard has no kids from any of her two marriages.
(Hero image credit: DNI Tulsi Gabbard/@DNIGabbard via X; Featured image credit: Office of the Director of National Intelligence/Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)