Matt Stone Net Worth

What is Matt Stone's Net Worth?

Matt Stone is an American actor, writer, producer, animator, and entrepreneur who has a net worth of $1 billion. Matt Stone earned his fortune as the co-creator, alongside college classmate Trey Parker, of the Comedy Central series "South Park." The duo ALSO co-created the Broadway musical "Book of Mormon," which won nine Tonys and has grossed over $1 billion from ticket sales, merchandise, and more.

Matt and Trey created the two short films that inspired "South Park" while they were in college. One of those short films was called "Jesus vs. Frosty." After graduating and relocating to Hollywood, they created "Jesus vs. Santa," an unofficial sequel to their earlier project. "Jesus vs. Santa" was a massive hit and eventually found its way to Doug Herzog, the CEO of Comedy Central. He invited the pair to create a series, and "South Park" was born. The show began airing in 1997, and it is still a massively profitable success.

Little did they know at the time, but they were launching one of the most profitable and enduring franchises in television history. As detailed in the section below, Stone and Parker's original deal with Comedy Central granted them a 50% stake in all non-broadcast revenue from the show—an arrangement that has become extraordinarily valuable in the streaming era.

The duo has also worked together on the films "Cannibal! The Musical" (1993), "Orgazmo" (1997), "BASEketball" (1998), "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut" (1999), and "Team America: World Police" (2004), the Comedy Central series "That's My Bush!" (2001), and the web series "Sassy Justice" (2020–present).

Stone voices numerous characters on "South Park," including Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Butters Stotch, and he voiced several characters in "Team America: World Police." He also played James Humphrey in "Cannibal! The Musical," Dave the Lighting Guy in "Orgazmo," and Doug Remer in "BASEketball," and he appeared in the films "Run Ronnie Run!" (2002) and "Electric Apricot: Quest for Festeroo" (2007).

An Extremely Valuable Contract Clause

Trey Parker and Matt Stone's path to billionaire status can be traced back to a single overlooked sentence in their very first Comedy Central contract in 1997. At a time when digital media didn't exist in any meaningful way, their lawyer included a clause that gave the creators a 50% share of any revenue generated outside of traditional television broadcasts. For nearly a decade, the clause was considered meaningless—until 2007.

That year, as YouTube exploded and Netflix launched its streaming platform, Parker and Stone's contract came up for renewal. Their legal team reminded Comedy Central of the 1997 clause, and this time, everyone understood its value. The renegotiated deal formalized their right to create a digital hub—South Park Studios—and secured their 50% ownership of all digital revenue, from ad-supported streams to subscription-based licensing.

Thanks to that clause, Parker and Stone earned hundreds of millions of dollars from major streaming deals over the next two decades. They reportedly received half of Hulu's $192 million four-year licensing deal in 2015, and another massive payday from HBO Max's $500 million deal in 2019. Most importantly, they never gave up ownership of the franchise's digital rights.

In 2025, that once-forgotten line became the centerpiece of a new and very public legal battle. As Parker and Stone negotiated a potential $2.5 billion global streaming deal, they accused Skydance Media and RedBird Capital—Paramount's incoming owners—of interfering in the talks. On July 14, 2025, Parker and Stone retained high-powered attorney Bryan Freedman and threatened legal action to protect the clause that has made them billionaires and kept them in full control of their empire.

Merchandise

Viacom/Comedy Central was smarter when it came to merchandise rights. From the show's inception, Viacom has had a lion's share of merchandise rights, reportedly as high as 90%. That might have been renegotiated in recent contracts, but the current terms have not been discussed publicly.

2021 Viacom/CBS Deal

On August 5, 2021, it was revealed that Matt and Trey had signed a new six-year, $900 million contract with ViacomCBS. Under the deal, Matt and Trey agreed to produce six seasons of the show and 14 movies, all of which is exclusive to the streaming service Paramount+.

Early Life

Matt Stone was born Matthew Richard Stone on May 26, 1971, in Houston, Texas. He grew up in Littleton, Colorado, with his mother Sheila, his father Gerald (an economics professor), and younger sister Rachel. Sheila and Gerald would later become the names of Kyle Broflovski's parents on "South Park." Matt attended Heritage High School, and after graduation, he enrolled at the University of Colorado Boulder. He majored in mathematics and film, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1993. After meeting Trey Parker in a film class, the two began making short films together, including "Man on Mars" and "First Date."

Career

In 1992, Matt and Trey founded the Avenging Conscience production company with Jason McHugh and Ian Hardin, and they made the short film "Jesus vs. Frosty" using construction paper cutouts. The short is also known as "The Spirit of Christmas," along with their 1995 short "Jesus vs. Santa," and it marks the first appearance of the boys who would become Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman. Parker, Stone, McHugh, and Hardin made a trailer for "Alferd Packer: The Musical," a film about "The Colorado Cannibal," and it was so popular among their fellow University of Colorado Boulder students that the chairman of the school's film department convinced them to expand it into an actual movie. Matt worked on the film as a writer, actor, and producer, and it was retitled "Cannibal! The Musical" after it was sold to Troma Entertainment in 1996. The film has become somewhat of a cult phenomenon, and a live stage version has been performed by numerous theatre companies.

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Parker and Stone moved to Hollywood and spent the next few years struggling despite the fact that they had an agent, a lawyer, and a script deal. Matt wrote and produced "Orgazmo" with Trey, who directed the movie, and after it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1997, October Films bought the rights for $1 million. After producer Brian Graden saw "Jesus vs. Frosty," he asked the duo to create a video greeting card for him to send to his friends; the result was "Jesus vs. Santa," and Comedy Central executive Doug Herzog liked it so much that he asked them to develop it into a series. Parker and Stone made the pilot for $300,000, and Comedy Central's marketing of the show earned the network approximately $30 million in t-shirt sales before the show even aired. As of this writing, "South Park" has aired more than 300 episodes over 23 seasons and spawned the movie "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut" (which grossed $83.1 million at the box office), the albums "Chef Aid: The South Park Album" (1998) and "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics" (1999), and several video games, such as "South Park: The Stick of Truth" (2014) and "South Park: The Fractured but Whole" (2017).

In 2002, Matt and Trey began working on an R-rated puppet film, "Team America: World Police," which they co-wrote and co-produced. Stone said of the experience, "It was the worst time of my entire life – I never want to see a puppet again." During the production of "Team America," the duo began working on "The Book of Mormon" with writer-composer Robert Lopez, who co-created "Avenue Q." The musical opened on Broadway on March 24, 2011, with Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad in the lead roles of Elder Price and Elder Cunningham. "The Book of Mormon" earned 14 Tony nominations, more than any other Broadway show received that year, and it won nine of them. In 2013, Parker and Stone announced that they were launching a production studio called Important Studios, saying, "Having worked with several different studios over the years, we came to realize that our favorite people in the world are ourselves." During the COVID-19 pandemic, Matt and Trey released two "South Park" specials, 2020's "The Pandemic Special" and 2021's "South ParQ Vaccination Special," and co-created the deepfake technology web series "Sassy Justice." Stone has said of the web series, "Before the big scary thing of coronavirus showed up, everyone was so afraid of deepfakes. We just wanted to make fun of it because it makes it less scary."

(Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Hulu)

Personal Life

Matt met Comedy Central executive Angela Howard in 2001, and they married in 2008. The couple has two children. Parker and Stone often poke fun at religion in their work, and Matt is a "self-described atheist."

Awards and Nominations

Stone has been nominated for 18 Primetime Emmys for "South Park," winning Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour) in 2005, 2007, and 2009, Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or More) in 2008, and Outstanding Animated Program in 2013. "South Park" has also earned Matt a CableACE Award for Animated Programming Special or Series and a PGA Award for Most Promising Producer in Television. "The Book of Mormon" won nine Tonys, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score. The musical also earned a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album as well as honors from the Drama Desk Awards and the Outer Critics Circle Awards.

Stone won a NAVGTR Award for Writing in a Comedy for the video game "South Park: The Stick of Truth," an MTV Movie Award for Best Musical Performance for "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut," and a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Animation for "The Spirit of Christmas," and Matt and Trey were presented with the Maverick Filmmakers Award at the 2003 Santa Monica Film Festival. Stone has also earned nominations from the Annie Awards (Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Feature Production for "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut"), Behind the Voice Actors Awards (Best Male Vocal Performance in a Video Game in a Supporting Role for "South Park: The Stick of Truth"), Gemini Awards (Best Comedy Program or Series for "Kenny vs. Spenny"), and Online Film & Television Association (Best Voice-Over Performance and Best Voice-Over Performance in a Animated Program for "South Park").

Real Estate

In 2005, Matt spent $3.5 million on a 3,000 square foot home in Venice, California. He listed this home for sale in January 2020 for $4.5 million. He owns a smaller property nearby, which he bought in 2003 for $800,000. In 2008, he spent $5.15 million to buy an entire floor of a New York City building, and he sold the property for $6.15 million in April 2019.

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