David Koch
American billionaire heir and businessman (1940–2019)
David Hamilton Koch ( KOHK; May 3, 1940 – August 23, 2019) was an American businessman, philanthropist, limited government advocate and chemical engineer. In 1970, he joined the family business: Koch Industries, the second-largest privately held company in the United States. He became president of the subsidiary Koch Engineering in 1979 and became a co-owner of Koch Industries (along with elder brother Charles) in 1983. Koch served as an executive vice president of Koch Industries until he retired due to health issues in 2018.
Koch was a libertarian. He was the 1980 Libertarian candidate for Vice President of the United States and helped finance the campaign. He founded Citizens for a Sound Economy and donated to advocacy groups and political campaigns, the majority of which were Republican. Koch became a Republican in 1984; in 2012, he spent over $100 million in a failed bid to oppose the re-election of President Barack Obama.
As of 2012, Koch was the fourth-richest person in the United States, and as of 2013 the wealthiest resident of New York City. As of June 2019, Koch was ranked as the 11th-richest person in the world (tied with his brother Charles), with a net worth of $50.5 billion.
“David Koch” enters the record as american billionaire heir and businessman (1940–2019). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what David, Koch and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1174641. VIAF identifies the subject as 251038191. The Library of Congress control number is no2012080737. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 2019, 1970 and 1979.
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This entry incorporates text from “David Koch” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.