Trump · Fortune Technology
Billionaire Michael Dell started his company in his University of Texas dorm room
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 1 outlet. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
◌ Single Source
Michael Dell is having one of his biggest philanthropic years yet, having announced a major gift to his alma mater on the heels of a $6.25 billion pledge to seed “Trump Accounts.”
Key facts
- Nike cofounder Phil Knight in 2025 pledged $2 billion to Oregon Health & Science University’s Cancer Institute, and Michael Bloomberg in 2024 gave $1 billion to Johns Hopkins to cover medical school
- Their foundation committed $25 million in 2005 to help build Dell Children’s Medical Center, which opened in 2007 as the region’s first freestanding pediatric hospital
- The $750 million gift is deeply personal for Dell, whose net worth is estimated at $177 billion, making him the seventh-richest man in the world, Billionaires Index as of Wednesday
- But Dell had long been fascinated by computers and technology, having disassembled an Apple II model at the age of 15 to see how it worked, according to a 1999 biography, Direct From Dell: Strategies
Summary
Michael Dell is having one of his biggest philanthropic years yet, having announced a major gift to his alma mater on the heels of a $6.25 billion pledge to seed “Trump Accounts.” The Dell Technologies founder and his wife, Susan Dell, announced Tuesday a $750 million gift to the University of Texas at Austin to fund a new medical center and research campus built around AI from the ground up. This is a full-circle moment for Dell, who founded the now $140 billion tech company in his dorm room at UT Austin in 1984. “What makes this moment so meaningful is the opportunity to build something that brings every part of the journey together—from how students learn, to how discoveries are made, to how care reaches families,” the Dells said in a statement. The newly branded UT Dell Medical Center is slated to open in 2030 on a 300-plus-acre campus.