Real Estate Billionaire Cardone Champions Economic Empowerment in Black Communities
DALLAS (AURN News) — Real estate mogul Grant Cardone, whose portfolio reportedly exceeds $4.88 billion (AUM), is taking an unconventional approach to addressing economic disparities in Black communities, advocating for radical changes in how Americans think about wealth creation and financial education. In an extensive exclusive interview with AURN News, Cardone emphasized his commitment to challenging traditional financial advice that he believes has held back generations of Black Americans. "If you came from parents that maybe were slaves 400 years ago, or your great grandparents, and you look at your life today and say, 'Man, I got a suit on, I look good, I got nothing to complain about' —so you have everything to complain about," Cardone said. “I was raised in the middle class. I was a drug addict at 15 years old. I went from being a middle-class family, brought up, taken care of. My dad dies, the leadership in the family was gone, the man image was gone. The direction, and the strength in the family was gone. And then the next thing you know, five years later, I'm a daily drug user. I get trapped in drugs for 10 years. I end up living on the streets. I destroyed everything, the money, a little bit of money I had, the education that I was being given where I lived. I'm out on the streets. I'm literally homeless. I had to rebuild. So the first thing to rebuild is to admit, hey, I'm screwed up here. Everything has to be relearned, and everything should be challenged,” he added. The entrepreneur, who overcame early personal struggles including drug addiction and homelessness, has faced both praise and criticism for his direct approach to addressing racial economic disparities. Cardone strongly challenges conventional wisdom about paths to wealth creation, particularly within minority communities. He argues against traditional advice about college education, which he sees as a potential trap. “If you've been told that higher education is the only way for Blacks and Browns and for poor White people to get up, it is not true. It's a trap. We have $1.6 trillion worth of college debt, $1.3 trillion of credit card debt. We have the highest bankruptcies in history, with the highest credit card delinquencies and the highest interest rates, and people are still doing this stuff, like, like, you got to relearn things,” he told AURN News. The successful businessman also takes particular aim at conventional homeownership advice, which he believes can impede wealth creation in Black communities. "Paying a mortgage of $4,000 a month and another $2,500 to $10,000 a year in insurance, plus property taxes, plus maintenance, plus the interest — is slavery," Cardone stated emphatically. Instead, he advocates for investment in income-producing real estate and business ownership. "One person can make a difference to a community," Cardone insisted, drawing parallels to influential figures in Black history. "Jesus Christ had them. Martin Luther King had them. Malcolm X had them. Every successful person on the planet has been hated by others that did less than they did." The real estate investor expressed a deep personal connection to his mission: "I have this unexplainable interest in the Black community. Always have... It's so alive, it's so fun, it's so rich, and it pains me to watch a group of people suffer financially when it's not necessary." His message ultimately focuses on breaking free from traditional financial constraints: "We have to relearn what our parents and great-grandparents got wrong," he emphasized, adding that modern wealth creation requires new thinking and strategies that go beyond conventional wisdom about savings and investment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
