Step aside, Kris Jenner. There’s a new tycoon in town.
Kylie Cosmetics founder Kylie Jenner has officially become the world’s youngest “self-made” billionaire at 21 years old, Forbes reported Tuesday.
The magazine credits her latest successes to her makeup company’s expansion into Ulta beauty stores, which caused revenue to climb 9 percent last year to an estimated $60 million. Forbes also reports that Kylie Cosmetics is valued at at least $900 million.
With Jenner pocketing most of the funds as the sole owner of the operation, and her other sources of income like brand partnerships and involvement on E!’s “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” she now has an estimated fortune of $1 billion, the site reports.
“I didn’t expect anything. I did not foresee the future,” Jenner told Forbes. “But [the recognition] feels really good. That’s a nice pat on the back.”
The company consists of just seven full-time employees and five part-time employees. Packaging and manufacturing is outsourced, sales are handled by Shopify, her momager handles finance and PR for a 10 percent fee, and marketing is mostly done through social media, where the Jenner sister has more than 175 million followers across Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
“It’s the power of social media,” the young billionaire said. “I had such a strong reach before I was able to start anything.”
In July, Forbes announced Jenner was set to become the youngest self-made billionaire, but critics lashed out at the report, bringing up the advantages she was born into as part of the already wealthy Kardashian/Jenner clan.
However, Jenner’s half-sister Kim Kardashian told Refinery29 at the time: “I really didn’t get it, because she is ‘self-made’ — we are all ‘self-made.’ What, because we came from a family that has had success? To me, that doesn’t really make sense … I know so many people like that [who] haven’t turned out to be as successful as Kylie. If anything, I’ve seen the complete opposite.”
When Kylie isn’t busy being the most successful young businesswoman in the world, she’s juggling life as a mom to her baby girl, Stormi, and girlfriend to rapper Travis Scott.