If Your Great-Grandfather Single-Handedly Invented The Chewing Gum Business, You Too Could Have Just Sold A $100 Million Palm Beach Estat (And Be Worth $4 Billion)

With California and New York sporting nosebleed-level personal income tax rates, dozens of billionaires have uprooted from their elite coastal enclaves in recent years and relocated to Palm Beach, Florida. Palm Beach has become a true billionaire's playground. The weather is warm year-round. There are multiple world-class golf courses. It has quietly evolved into the center of the American political universe, a not-insignificant factor for ultra-high-net-worth individuals. And for $70–100 million, or even north of $200 million, a billionaire can buy a sprawling, multi-acre oceanfront estate that would be unthinkable in most other parts of the country.

Just last Thursday, we published a story about an under-the-radar billionaire named David MacNeil who paid $75 million for a mansion in Manalapan, a town located roughly a mile south of Palm Beach. That purchase came on top of roughly $95 million worth of real estate he already owned in the area. MacNeil also happens to own a $70 million Ferrari 250 GTO, one of just 36 ever built.

MacNeil's story is notable because, in an era when many modern billionaires have become celebrity-adjacent figures thanks to flashy, high-tech ventures, he built his fortune in a far more boring way. Most people have never heard his name, yet there is a good chance you have one of his products in your car right now. MacNeil is the founder and sole owner of WeatherTech, the Illinois-based company that manufactures automobile floor mats. WeatherTech generated approximately $800 million in revenue in 2025, and MacNeil still owns 100% of the business.

Today, we're telling the story of another billionaire who was just involved in a massive Palm Beach real estate transaction. Like MacNeil, this billionaire did not make his fortune by building an app, launching a crypto token, or riding the AI boom. He made his money in the simplest and most boring way possible. He inherited it.

The multi-billionaire who just sold a Palm Beach-area estate for $97 million owes his $3.7 billion fortune to the fact that his great-grandfather single-handedly invented the modern chewing gum business. You may have never heard of him, and you certainly wouldn't recognize him walking down the street. But you will absolutely recognize his last name.

A Soap Salesman, A Gimmick, And An Accidental Empire

William's great-grandfather, who was also named William, was born in 1861. As the son of a modest soap maker, William dropped out of school at the age of 13 to work full-time selling soap door-to-door.

To boost sales, he came up with a clever sales gimmick: Every bar of soap came with a free pack of baking powder. As it turned out, his customers were much more interested in his baking powder than his soap. So, he ditched the soap and made baking powder his primary product.

As a new promotional gimmick, he included two free packs of chewing gum with every baking powder purchase. As it turned out, his customers were much more interested in his chewing gum.

In 1891, when he was 29, William founded his own company that would exclusively focus on selling chewing gum. He named the company after himself: The William Wrigley Jr. Company.

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Generational Billions From Candy

Over the ensuing decades, the William Wrigley Jr. Company became a candy empire. But interestingly, the company was built not just on gum but on obsessive advertising, distribution scale, and brand repetition. By the early 20th century, Wrigley was spending more on advertising than any other company in America, plastering his brand on billboards, newspapers, magazines, and even mailing free gum to millions of households.

Chewing gum turned out to be the perfect product: cheap to produce, easy to ship, habit-forming, and universally consumable. The money stuck around.

By the time William Wrigley Jr. died in 1932, he was worth $40 million. After adjusting for inflation, that's the same as $915 million today.

Following William's death, his son, Philip K. Wrigley, took over and oversaw its expansion through the Great Depression and World War II, while also becoming the owner of the Chicago Cubs and steward of Wrigley Field.

Philip K. Wrigley's son, William Wrigley Jr. III, later assumed control of the family business and played a key role in modernizing the company during the postwar consumer boom. William Wrigley Jr. III is the father of William Wrigley Jr. II, today's billionaire who just sold a house in Palm Beach for $97.5 million.

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

$97 Million Palm Beach Sale

After attending Duke University and then earning an MBA from Wharton, William Wrigley Jr. II became CEO of the family business in 1999. Under his leadership, the company expanded beyond chewing gum through acquisitions of brands such as Altoids and Life Savers. He stepped down in 2008 after orchestrating the sale of the family business to a similarly family-owned business, Mars Inc., for $23 billion.

With the sale, dozens of extended Wrigley family members became liquid hundred-millionaires and billionaires. Today, William Wrigley Jr. II's net worth is $3.7 billion.

In 2009, a year after the Mars deal closed, William paid $11 million for a parcel of waterfront land inside a private, gated golf community in Palm Beach, Florida. A year later, he added a neighboring parcel for $6.1 million. By 2013, he had completed construction on an 18,000-square-foot waterfront mansion featuring multiple docks, including one capable of accommodating a large yacht, along with a swimming pool and an expansive lawn overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway.

William just sold this property for $97.5 million to a buyer whose identity has not yet been named.

This is not William's first major real estate transaction. In 2022, he sold a mansion in Aspen, Colorado, for $30 million.

And to his credit, both before and after the $23 billion Mars sale, William did not simply sit back and collect dividends. He played a central role in pushing for and ultimately securing the deal that ended more than a century of family control.

After the sale, at a point when he could have comfortably done nothing for the rest of his life, he chose to take on a new challenge. In 2018, William became the chief executive officer of the cannabis company Parallel, a role he continues to hold today.