An ice-hockey player turned federal prosecutor; Here's how much fortune Kash Patel boasts

Kash Patel is on his way to lead the FBI, given he is confirmed by the US Senate. The American lawyer who was born to Indian Gujarati parents, was nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the FBI, is scheduled to appear for his US Senate confirmation hearing on January 30. During the hearing, senators from both sides of the political spectrum will have the opportunity to question Patel. While Democrats are expected to scrutinize Patel’s past criticisms of the FBI, his professional background, and his overall track record, Patel will likely face inquiries regarding his previous comments aimed at the FBI's leadership as well.

Here’s all you need to know about Kash Patel.


Who is Kash Patel?

Kashyap Pramod Vinod Patel, who is popularly known as Kash Patel, was born in Garden City, New York. His Indian Gujarati immigrant parents first moved to Canada in the early 1970s from Uganda in East Africa, where they faced ethnic repression. Later, as Patel’s father started working as a financial officer at an aviation firm, the family moved to the United States.

Patel, who is widely known for his harsh remarks about Russia and support of Trump, is not married despite some reports that he tied a knot in a “secret” Hindu wedding. While Patel's work life is widely known, information regarding his personal life has been less accessible in the public domain.


Net worth and assets:
Patel has a net worth of $30 million.
Patel is an avid car enthusiast with a collection of over fifteen vintage and modern luxury vehicles. His most recent purchase is a Lamborghini Urus. He also drives a Tesla and a Mercedes S-Class.

Kash Patel’s net worth includes $7 million worth of stock in Tesla. He also made enormous profits through trading in Bitcoin. In January 2024, Kash Patel bought a four-bedroom luxury mansion in Florida from Fox News host Bret Baier.

Schooling and extracurricular activities:

Patel graduated from Garden City High School on Long Island. After high school, Patel earned a Bachelor of Arts in history and criminal justice from the University of Richmond in 2002, completed his Juris Doctor at Pace University School of Law, New York in 2005, and obtained a certificate in international law from University College London, England in 2004.

Patel has a keen interest in playing ice hockey and he is a fan of the sport as well.

In 2014, according to the legal website Above the Law, Patel agreed to participate in a "bachelor auction" of "very handsome lawyers" to benefit Switchboard of Miami, a social services organization. He later withdrew from the auction after noting that his Florida bar status was inactive at that time.

Besides, Patel has been a regular guest on several podcasts including those hosted by Tim Pool and Benny Johnson, among others.





Early career:

Once Kash Patel completed law school, he moved to Florida and was admitted as a member of the Florida Bar in April 2006. He spent the next eight years as a public defender, first in the Miami-Dade County public defender's office and later as a federal public defender.

In 2014, Patel was hired as a trial attorney in the United States Department of Justice National Security Division, where he simultaneously served as a legal liaison to the Joint Special Operations Command.

In 2017, Patel was appointed senior counsel on counterterrorism at the House Intelligence Committee. In April that year, he became the senior committee aide to House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes.

Patel played a prominent role in the Republican opposition to the investigations into Donald Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In 2019, after Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, Patel worked for about a month as a senior counsel at the House Reform and Oversight Committee. The same year, Patel was hired as a staffer for President Donald Trump's National Security Council (NSC), working in the International Organizations and Alliances directorate, and then went on to become Senior Director of the Counterterrorism Directorate, which was a new position created particularly for him.

The Trump–Ukraine scandal

It was alleged by some advisors, including John Bolton's associate Fiona Hill that, soon after joining NSC, Patel had assumed the role of an additional independent back channel for the President, while Patel was seen as underqualified for his portfolio, which covered the United Nations. Although Patel's actual assignment was counter-terrorism issues, rather than Ukraine, he was thought to have operated independently of Rudy Giuliani's irregular, informal channel.

In 2019, the House Intelligence Committee's report included phone records, acquired via subpoenas to AT&T and/or Verizon, including a 25-minute phone call between Patel and Giuliani on May 10, 2019. The call occurred after Giuliani and Patel attempted to call each other for several hours, and less than an hour after a call between Giuliani and Kurt Volker.

However, Patel denied being part of Giuliani's Ukraine back-channel, saying he was "never a back channel to President Trump on Ukraine matters, at all, ever", and that his call with Giuliani was "personal".


Rise to power:

In 2020, Trump named Patel as chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller. Patel reportedly argued that Esper was disloyal to Trump by refusing to deploy military troops to Washington to quell the George Floyd protests.

Patel remained at the Pentagon for three months.

As chief of staff, Patel was designated to lead the Department of Defense's coordination with Joe Biden 's presidential transition. However, according to NBC, after the November 2020 election, Patel reportedly blocked some Department of Defense officials from helping the Biden administration transition and also supported a departmental initiative to separate the National Security Agency from the U.S. Cyber Command.

Trump proposed Patel as a potential leader for either the FBI or CIA in early 2021 following the 2020 United States presidential election . He had considered installing Patel as either CIA deputy director or acting director as well.

However, this proposal faced significant resistance, including from Attorney General William Barr, who wrote in his memoir that Patel would become FBI director only "over his dead body". In his last weeks in office, Trump planned to appoint Patel as CIA Deputy Director, replacing Vaughn Bishop but interventions from Vice President Mike Pence and White House counsel Pat Cipollone stopped that.

Conflicts and controversies:

As per a report of CNN, in January 2025, Patel had for years clashed with the FBI and CIA, notably about his handling of national security secrets which led the CIA to ask the first Trump Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into his activities.

The CIA alleged Patel had circulated classified information about the Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election to government officials not authorized to see it, to discredit the FBI investigation of Russian interference.

Patel denied mishandling classified documents and the DOJ referral did not lead to prosecution. However, Patel's FBI security clearance file remained flagged to indicate the CIA referral had been made. He even suggested the FBI should scale back its national security intelligence operations to focus solely on criminal investigations.