Type two famous business names into a search box and you expect to find a deal, a partnership, or at least a meeting. With Hiroshi Mikitani and James Gorman, there is no such story, and that is the first honest thing this article will tell you. One is the Japanese founder who built Rakuten from a tiny online mall into a sprawling empire of shopping, banking, phones, and sports. The other is the Australian born banker who spent fourteen years running Morgan Stanley and now chairs the board of Disney. Their names appear together online for a reason, but it is not a friendship or a joint venture. It is an institutional link between their companies, plus a comparison question that no existing page answers properly: who is richer, and by how much?
This article is the first paired piece about them that answers the money question with labeled numbers instead of dodging it. It starts with the connection truth, then gives you the comparison you actually came for, with every figure sourced and every estimate labeled as an estimate.
A note on photos before we start: the images in this article are illustrative stock photos. They are not photographs of Hiroshi Mikitani or James Gorman, and no caption here should be read as suggesting otherwise.
Are They Connected? The Honest Answer First
No. There is no documented personal relationship, partnership, shared company, shared board seat, meeting, or joint investment between Hiroshi Mikitani and James Gorman. Neither man sits on the other’s board. Rakuten’s management roster has no Gorman on it, and Disney’s board has no Mikitani on it. Anyone who tells you they are business partners is inventing a story to fill a keyword.
The Morgan Stanley Deals Behind the Pairing
What does exist is real, and it is worth explaining carefully, because it is easy to overstate. Morgan Stanley’s business, not James Gorman personally, has worked on Rakuten deals for more than a decade:
- In June 2014, Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities was among the underwriters of a Rakuten institutional bond offering, while Gorman was Morgan Stanley’s chairman and chief executive.
- In May 2023, a Rakuten equity offering disclosure showed MSIP Client Securities, with Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities as standing proxy, holding 3.68 percent before the offering and an estimated 2.74 percent after. Those were client securities, not Gorman’s personal holding, and presenting them as his stake would be wrong.
- In February 2024, Morgan Stanley and Co. LLC, alongside Goldman Sachs, Daiwa, and Mizuho, acted as dealer manager for Rakuten’s cash tender offers on outstanding notes. By then Gorman was Morgan Stanley’s executive chairman, not its chief executive.
- In July 2025, Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities was a lead manager for 20 billion yen of Rakuten sustainability bonds, after Gorman had retired from Morgan Stanley.
- In May 2026, Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities and BofA Securities Japan advised Rakuten on its fintech reorganization, covering Rakuten Bank, Rakuten Card, and Rakuten Securities Holdings, with valuation analysis from the Morgan Stanley joint venture.
Two cautions matter here. First, Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities is a joint venture between MUFG and Morgan Stanley, not Morgan Stanley itself. Second, a bank working on a company’s deals does not mean its chief executive personally negotiated with that company’s founder. The link is institutional, it is documented, and it stops there.
Who Is Hiroshi Mikitani?
From Kobe Banker to Rakuten Founder
Hiroshi Mikitani was born on March 11, 1965, in Kobe, Japan. He studied commerce at Hitotsubashi University, graduating in 1988, and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1993. He joined the Industrial Bank of Japan in 1988, left banking after the 1995 Kobe earthquake, and on February 7, 1997, founded MDM, Inc. with three co-founders and $250,000 of their own money. The company launched Rakuten Ichiba, an online marketplace, on May 1, 1997, with 13 shops and 6 employees. It was renamed Rakuten in 1999 and listed on JASDAQ in 2000.
From that small start he built an ecosystem, not just a shop. Rakuten bought Buy.com in 2010, PriceMinister in France, Kobo for e-books, Ebates (now Rakuten Rewards) for cash back shopping, and Viber for messaging, and took minority stakes in Pinterest and Lyft. Today the Rakuten group counts more than 70 businesses, from e-commerce and banking to travel, sports, and mobile phones. He also owns the Vissel Kobe football club, founded the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles baseball team in 2004 (which won the Japan Series in 2013), and co-founded Kosmos Holding with footballer Gerard Pique in 2017. In 2010 he made English the official internal language of Rakuten, a move called “Englishnization” that was radical for a Japanese company at the time. In 2011 he quit Japan’s biggest business lobby, Keidanren, over its pro-nuclear stance after the Fukushima disaster, and launched a rival association for new economy companies in 2012.
The Mobile Bet That Nearly Broke Rakuten
Mikitani’s defining gamble is Rakuten Mobile. Launched in 2020 at a reported cost of about $5.5 billion, it was an attempt to build a fourth national mobile carrier in Japan from scratch, using cloud based network technology instead of traditional equipment. The bet bled money for years and dragged Rakuten’s results down, which is why older net worth lists show Mikitani much richer than today’s lists do. Tencent, Japan Post Holdings, and Walmart invested more than $2 billion combined in 2021. Rakuten Bank was listed in 2023, with stake sales near $900 million in two tranches, and about 15 percent of the card arm was sold to Mizuho, all to fund the mobile build.
The turn, if it holds, came in Rakuten’s FY2025 results, announced on February 12, 2026. Consolidated revenue reached 2.5 trillion yen, up 9.5 percent year on year, a record for the 29th consecutive year. Rakuten Mobile posted its first full year EBITDA profit of 12.9 billion yen, on revenue of 374.7 billion yen, up 32 percent, with 10.01 million subscriptions at the end of December 2025. The group skipped its FY2025 dividend to preserve cash for investment. One caution: some secondary pages claim a 2025 net loss for Rakuten, but Rakuten’s own results release reports operating profit, and operating profit and net loss can coexist through finance costs and taxes, so this article states no net loss figure without a primary source.
Rakuten’s 2026 Turn: First Profitable Quarter in Six Years
Rakuten Group’s Q2 FY2026 results, reported in August 2026, showed record second quarter revenue of 665.5 billion yen, up 11.6 percent, and the group’s first quarterly net income in six years, 7.7 billion yen attributable to owners, with Rakuten Mobile subscriptions at 10.75 million at the end of June 2026. Opensignal’s October 2026 analysis puts Mobile at 11 million subscribers as of September 2026 and notes the first positive group net income since Q2 2020. These figures come from Rakuten’s own results release and Opensignal’s analysis.
Who Is James Gorman?
James Gorman was born on July 14, 1958, in Melbourne, Australia, the sixth of ten children. He studied at Xavier College, earned arts and law degrees from the University of Melbourne, and took an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1987. He practiced law, then joined McKinsey and Company, where he became a senior partner in financial services and worked on the Merrill Lynch account for ten years. He moved to Merrill Lynch itself in 1999 as chief marketing officer, then head of brokerage, and joined Morgan Stanley in February 2006 as president and chief operating officer of Global Wealth Management. He became co-president in December 2007, chief executive on January 1, 2010, and chairman in January 2012.
The Wealth Management Transformation
His fourteen years at the top were defined by one big pivot: turning Morgan Stanley from a trading house that lived and died by volatile markets into a wealth management machine. He led the combination with Citigroup’s Smith Barney brokerage in 2009, buying the remaining 35 percent in June 2013, creating a business with more than 16,000 advisors and $1.8 trillion in client assets. Wealth management grew from about 3 percent margins on $5 billion of revenue when he arrived to more than 25 percent on $16 billion. He added E*TRADE in a roughly $13 billion all stock deal announced in 2020, and Eaton Vance in asset management. Across his tenure the stock price more than tripled and the market capitalization nearly quadrupled to $153 billion, with more than 60 percent of pretax profit coming from wealth and investment management, against about 30 percent in 2010. Ted Pick succeeded him as chief executive on January 1, 2024, and as chairman on January 1, 2025. Gorman served as executive chairman through 2024 and has been chairman emeritus since January 2025.
Hiroshi Mikitani and James Gorman: The Side-by-Side Comparison
| Hiroshi Mikitani | James Gorman | |
|---|---|---|
| Born | March 11, 1965, Kobe, Japan | July 14, 1958, Melbourne, Australia |
| Known for | Founder of Rakuten | Former CEO of Morgan Stanley; Disney board chair |
| Career start | Industrial Bank of Japan, 1988 | Law, then McKinsey, 1987 |
| Path to the top | Founded his own company in 1997 | 17 years up the banking ladder to CEO in 2010 |
| Income engine | Founder equity in Rakuten | Salary, bonuses, stock awards as an executive |
| Headline wealth figure | About $3.1 to 3.9 billion (Forbes based estimates, 2026) | No authoritative figure; holdings based estimates about $80 to 300 million |
| Biggest documented pay fact | 196 million yen total pay in 2024 (about $1.23 million) | About $338 million total CEO era earnings |
| Current status (2026) | Rakuten Group chairman, president, and CEO | Disney board chair; Morgan Stanley chairman emeritus; General Atlantic senior advisor |
| Defining bet | Rakuten Mobile, about $5.5 billion build | Wealth management pivot at Morgan Stanley |
| Philanthropy note | 1 billion yen donation to Ukraine in 2022 | Board and advisory roles; no headline personal giving figure |
Mikitani Net Worth: Why Forbes Puts Him Near $3 Billion
Mikitani’s fortune is founder equity, so it moves with Rakuten’s share price and the yen, and every figure for it is an estimate, not an audited balance sheet. With that label attached, the 2026 picture is consistent. Forbes Japan’s 50 Richest 2026, published in June 2026, put him at about $3.65 billion, ranked 13th in Japan. Forbes real-time tracking through the year showed figures between about $3.11 billion and $3.23 billion, with global ranks around 1320 to 1335, including a Forbes estimate dated October 30, 2026 at $3.12 billion. A March 2026 list figure put him at $3.9 billion. The honest 2026 range, then, is about $3.1 billion to $3.9 billion, and it is lower than his older peaks, about $6.7 billion in 2021 and $5.6 billion in 2016, because the mobile build cost him years of value before the FY2025 turn.
Two details explain the range. First, his shareholding: a February 2026 Rakuten disclosure listed Mikitani personally at about 8.14 percent of Rakuten Group shares, with his Crimson Group holding another 10.43 percent, while Simply Wall St aggregates his direct and related holdings at 27.51 percent, worth about 431.92 billion yen. Those numbers measure different scopes, personal versus aggregated, so this article reports both with attribution instead of silently picking one. Second, his pay is small next to his wealth and next to Gorman’s: Rakuten’s chief executive total compensation was 196 million yen in 2024, about $1.23 million, mostly bonuses and stock. Founders do not get rich from salary. They get rich from owning the company, which is exactly the contrast with Gorman below.
Gorman Net Worth: Why There Is No Single Number
Here is the gap no competitor page fills honestly: there is no authoritative net worth figure for James Gorman anywhere. He has no Forbes billionaire listing, and no Celebrity Net Worth page was found for him at all. What exists is a set of holdings based estimates built from disclosed Morgan Stanley stock, plus documented pay, and the two must not be confused.
The holdings estimates: CEO.wiki gives a conservative $81 million to $130 million from publicly disclosed Morgan Stanley stock holdings, and a higher $185 million to $296 million range including other holdings and accumulated wealth, noting about 568,000 Morgan Stanley shares worth more than $78 million in early 2025. Wallmine based figures put him at about $90.9 million in February 2018, about $177 million in January 2023, and about $185 million in December 2024. All of those count disclosed stock, not total wealth, and all of them are estimates.
The documented anchors are facts, not estimates. The Financial Times put his total earnings across his chief executive tenure at nearly $338 million. His disclosed pay was $33 million for 2020, $35 million for 2021, $31.5 million for 2022, $37 million for 2023 (a $1.5 million salary plus a $35.5 million bonus, 75 percent deferred), and $27 million for 2024 as executive chairman. He also cashed out more than $40 million in Morgan Stanley shares in 2023. Figures to reject outright: a $500 million header on a page whose own body contradicts it, a $500 million figure for 2026 from a fabricated year by year table, a $30 million figure that confuses salary with wealth, and a $5 million figure from a junk birthday site. The defensible statement is a holdings based range of roughly $80 million to $300 million, with the middle of credible estimates around $130 million to $185 million, and no single figure that can be stated as fact.
The Verdict: Who Is Richer, and by How Much?
Mikitani, by an enormous margin. On honest ranges, about $3.1 billion to $3.9 billion against about $80 million to $300 million, he is roughly ten to forty times richer, depending on which ends of the ranges you use. Even if you take the highest semi-plausible Gorman figure, about $296 million, Mikitani is still about ten times richer. This is a blowout in the same style as the Disney chief executive against the fashion founder in an earlier article in this series, not a tie. The structural reason is the same: founder equity compounds, executive pay stops when the job stops.
Careers Side by Side: A Short Timeline
1988: Mikitani joins the Industrial Bank of Japan; Gorman is already at McKinsey. 1997: Mikitani founds Rakuten with $250,000. 2000: Rakuten lists on JASDAQ. 2006: Gorman joins Morgan Stanley. 2010: Gorman becomes Morgan Stanley chief executive, and Mikitani makes English Rakuten’s internal language. 2014: Gorman’s bank helps underwrite Rakuten bonds, the first documented institutional link. 2020: Rakuten Mobile launches, and Gorman announces the E*TRADE deal. 2023: Rakuten’s equity offering shows Morgan Stanley client securities on the register. 2024: Gorman steps down as Morgan Stanley chief executive and becomes executive chairman. 2025: Gorman becomes Disney board chair, and Morgan Stanley’s joint venture leads Rakuten sustainability bonds. 2026: Rakuten reported record revenue and its mobile arm’s first profitable year, while Disney’s board elected Josh D’Amaro as chief executive on February 3, 2026; he took office on March 18, 2026, succeeding Bob Iger, with Dana Walden as president and chief creative officer the same day. Two careers, two countries, two kinds of success, laid out in one line.
Founder Equity vs Executive Pay: Two Money Machines
This is the most useful contrast in the whole comparison, and no competitor page writes about it. Mikitani’s money machine is ownership: he founded a company, kept a large stake in it, and watched that stake rise and fall with the business. His salary is almost irrelevant to his fortune. When Rakuten Mobile bled money, his paper wealth fell by billions. When the mobile arm turned profitable, it recovered. The risk and the reward both sit with him, because he owns the thing.
Gorman’s money machine is the corporate pay package: a modest salary, a large bonus mostly deferred, and stock awards that vest over years. The Financial Times total of nearly $338 million across his tenure is real money, but it is capped by what a board agrees to pay, it is taxed as it vests, and it stops growing the day he leaves the job. What remains is whatever he kept and invested, which is why his wealth can only be estimated from disclosed holdings. One machine is steady, disclosed, and capped. The other is lumpy, estimated, and capped only by the market. Understanding that difference is worth more than any single net worth number.
Why Hiroshi Mikitani and James Gorman Are Searched Together
The searcher wants a side-by-side profile, who they are, what they are worth, and who comes out ahead, plus an answer to the connection question that the pairing implies. That is a legitimate question, and it deserves a real answer rather than an invented backstory. The rest of this article gives it, and the honest version is more interesting than the invented one: an institutional link between two companies, and a wealth gap that tells you how fortunes are actually built.
What Each Is Doing in 2026
Mikitani’s 2026 is a year of repair and reorganization. Rakuten reported record revenue for the 29th consecutive year, its mobile arm turned its first full year profit, and in May 2026 the group pushed ahead with a fintech reorganization of Rakuten Bank, Rakuten Card, and Rakuten Securities Holdings, advised by Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities and BofA Securities Japan. He remains Representative Director, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive of Rakuten Group, and also chairs Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony. After 29 years as founder in charge, there is no succession in sight, which is itself a contrast with Gorman.
Gorman’s 2026 is a year of succession work. As Disney board chair since January 2, 2025, he chaired the succession planning committee that chose the company’s next chief executive, and on February 3, 2026, Disney’s board elected Josh D’Amaro as chief executive, effective March 18, 2026, succeeding Bob Iger, with Dana Walden becoming president and chief creative officer the same day. Iger stays as senior adviser and director until December 31, 2026. He also serves as a non-employee adviser to Morgan Stanley from January 2025 through the end of 2026, per Morgan Stanley’s October 2024 statement; after December 31, 2026, that tie ends. Gorman also serves as chairman emeritus of Morgan Stanley and as a senior advisor at General Atlantic since April 1, 2025. The man who handed Morgan Stanley over in an orderly transition is now doing the same job for Disney, which is a neat symmetry to end his section on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Hiroshi Mikitani and James Gorman business partners?
No. There is no partnership, joint venture, or shared company between them. The link between their names is institutional: Morgan Stanley’s business has worked on Rakuten deals, but neither man is a partner of the other.
What is the connection between Hiroshi Mikitani and James Gorman?
The only documented connection is institutional, through Morgan Stanley and its MUFG joint venture working on Rakuten financings: a 2014 bond underwriting, a 2023 equity offering, 2024 tender offers, 2025 sustainability bonds, and 2026 fintech reorganization advice. There is no personal meeting, deal, or shared board seat on record.
Who is richer, Hiroshi Mikitani or James Gorman?
Hiroshi Mikitani, by a very large margin. On honest ranges, his roughly $3.1 billion to $3.9 billion against Gorman’s roughly $80 million to $300 million puts him about ten to forty times richer, depending on which ends of the ranges you use.
What is Hiroshi Mikitani’s net worth?
About $3.1 billion to $3.9 billion in 2026, based on Forbes figures: about $3.65 billion on Forbes Japan’s 2026 rich list, and real time figures between about $3.11 billion and $3.23 billion through the year. All figures are estimates tied to Rakuten’s share price, not audited facts.
What is James Gorman’s net worth?
There is no authoritative figure. Holdings based estimates from disclosed Morgan Stanley stock run from about $80 million to $300 million, with the middle of credible estimates around $130 million to $185 million. His documented chief executive era earnings of nearly $338 million are a fact, but earnings are not the same as current net worth.
Is James Gorman still the CEO of Morgan Stanley?
No. He was chief executive from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2023. Ted Pick succeeded him as chief executive on January 1, 2024, and as chairman on January 1, 2025. Gorman is now chairman emeritus of Morgan Stanley.
What does James Gorman do now?
He chairs the board of The Walt Disney Company, a role he has held since January 2, 2025. He is also chairman emeritus of Morgan Stanley and a senior advisor at General Atlantic since April 1, 2025.
Is James Gorman the chairman of Disney?
Yes. He became chairman of Disney’s board on January 2, 2025, succeeding Mark Parker, after joining the board in 2024 and chairing its succession planning committee. In February 2026 he presented Josh D’Amaro as Disney’s next chief executive.
What company did Hiroshi Mikitani found?
Rakuten. He founded MDM, Inc. on February 7, 1997, launched the Rakuten Ichiba online marketplace on May 1, 1997, and built it into the Rakuten Group, which now spans e-commerce, banking, travel, sports, and mobile phones.
Is Hiroshi Mikitani still the CEO of Rakuten?
Yes. He remains Representative Director, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive of Rakuten Group in 2026, and also chairs Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony. After 29 years as founder in charge, no succession has been announced.
Did Morgan Stanley work with Rakuten?
Yes, repeatedly, at the institutional level. Its MUFG joint venture helped underwrite Rakuten bonds in 2014, its client securities appeared on Rakuten’s register in the 2023 equity offering, Morgan Stanley and Co. LLC acted as dealer manager for Rakuten tender offers in 2024, the joint venture led Rakuten sustainability bonds in 2025, and it advised Rakuten’s fintech reorganization in May 2026.
Do Mikitani and Gorman share a board seat?
No. Neither man sits on the other’s board. Rakuten’s management roster has no Gorman on it, and Disney’s board has no Mikitani on it.
Is Rakuten profitable again in 2026?
At group level, yes for one quarter: Q2 2026 brought the first quarterly net income in six years, and Rakuten Mobile passed 11 million subscribers in September 2026.
Did Disney get a new CEO in 2026?
Yes, Josh D’Amaro took office on March 18, 2026, succeeding Bob Iger, with Dana Walden as president and chief creative officer.
Is James Gorman still advising Morgan Stanley?
He serves as a non-employee adviser from January 2025 through the end of 2026, alongside his Disney chairmanship and General Atlantic senior advisor role.
Final Thoughts
If you came here expecting a hidden partnership, the honest answer is duller and better: two companies did business together for a decade, and two men who never met became a comparison because the internet likes to rank rich people side by side. But the comparison turns out to be a useful lens. One fortune was built by founding something and refusing to sell it. The other was built by running something superbly well for someone else’s shareholders and being paid handsomely for it. Both paths made their men wealthy. Only one of them made a billionaire.
That is the point to carry past the headline numbers. When you read that a founder is worth billions and an executive is worth tens of millions, you are not reading about talent or effort. You are reading about ownership. The founder’s number moves with a share price he still controls. The executive’s number is what survived years of pay, tax, and spending after the job ended. Learn to tell those two kinds of money apart, and no net worth headline will ever fool you again, whether it names a Japanese e-commerce founder, a Wall Street chief, or the next pair the internet decides to rank.
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Aliza Blogger writes for Medium Blogs, where she covers business, lifestyle, tech, food, games, travel, celebrities and net worth in clear and simple words. Her work focuses on honest, well researched stories. Every figure is checked, every estimate is labeled, and every pairing is tested before it is written about. No hype, just clear facts and full detail.