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John Joseph Ricketts (born July 16, 1941) is an American businessman. He is the founder, former CEO and former chairman of TD Ameritrade. He has an estimated net worth of US$4.1 billion as of 2024, according to Forbes. He has pursued a variety of other business ventures including DNAinfo.com, High Plains Bison, The Lodge at Jackson Fork, and The American Film Company. Ricketts also engages in philanthropy through The Ricketts Art Foundation, Opportunity Education Foundation, The Cloisters on the Platte Foundation, and The Ricketts Conservation Foundation. He and his family have been the owners of the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball since October 2009.
Regarding his time in Omaha during the 1960s, Ricketts wrote in his 2019 memoir The Harder You Work, the Luckier You Get about " destroying their lives with dope, alcohol, and sex, which was just another kind of drug":
Our substance of choice was beer. Beer, whatever its drawbacks, is not dope. Marlene generally did not come out for drinks on Friday at the Rookery. She went home and got supper ready for the children. Often, I did not get home in time to eat with them. I might have had twelve beers on a Friday evening. I might have had more. I'm sure there were a few nights that it was only by the grace of God that I didn't Drunk driving. But it was only beer and it helped me get rid of all my pent-up stress. I got myself home, and our family and our business could press on together.
In 2010, Ricketts led a campaign against earmarks and what he perceived to be wasteful federal spending. Politico , Sept 2010 Politico, Nov 2010 Ricketts founded an independent organization called Taxpayers Against Earmarks that classified every Member of Congress as either a spending "hero" or "hooligan." NYTimes The Caucus, Sept 2010
Along with Taxpayers for Common Sense and WashingtonWatch.com, Taxpayers Against Earmarks developed a database of earmarks requested by members of Congress.Manu Raju, Study: 39,294 earmarks sought, Politico (December 6, 2010). The group successfully pressed for a moratorium on earmarks in 2010.Jennifer Reingold, Joe Ricketts: The new billionaire political activist, Fortune (September 21, 2012). Taxpayers Against Earmarks changed its name to Ending Spending in 2011, as part of a broadening of the group's focus.Rachel Finkel, Ending Spending Action Fund, FactCheck.org (April 1, 2014).
Ricketts established and funded The Ending Spending Fund, a political action committee, in 2010. Omaha.com, Nov 2010 The Ending Spending Fund spent over $1 million sponsoring independent advertisements in several Congressional races. The goal of the advertising expenditure was to highlight incumbents' earmark-related policies.Gibson, Jake, "New TV ad by 'The Ending Spending Fund' Targets Reid over Earmarks" , Foxnews.com, October 28, 2010. The Ending Spending Fund spent the largest amount of its money on the United States Senate election in Nevada, 2010 in an unsuccessful effort to defeat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Although not required by law, Ricketts willingly disclosed his identity due to his belief in transparency.
Ricketts served on the board of trustees of the American Enterprise Institute from 1999 to 2007. His son, Pete Ricketts, is a member of the Republican National Committee, was elected governor of Nebraska in 2014, and is currently a U.S. senator. His daughter, Laura Ricketts, is a gay rights activist and prominent bundler for Barack Obama.Blake, Aaron, and Sandhya Somashekhar, "Joe Ricketts, a wealthy donor, getting attention in presidential contest", Washington Post, May 17, 2012. Retrieved 2012-05-18. Another son, Todd Ricketts, was named CEO of Ending Spending in 2013.
On May 17, 2012, The New York Times published a story by Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg reporting that The Ending Spending Action fund had been presented with a 54-page proposal entitled, "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: the Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good." According to the Times, the proposal, written by a vendor seeking to be hired by Ending Spending, suggested a $10-million ad campaign to "attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away" and called for "running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Jeremiah Wright." The report came to light when an unidentified person, who was not connected to the proposal, leaked it to The New York Times. The president of the Ending Spending Action Fund said that the pitch was a "nonstarter" and issued the following statement repudiating the proposal: "Not only was this plan merely a proposal—one of several submitted to the Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors—but it reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take."
As of mid-2014, the Ending Spending SuperPac had supported only Republicans.
In the 2016 presidential election, Ricketts donated at least one million dollars in support of Donald Trump. Ricketts also raised funds for the Future45 Super Pac and the 45Committee, a pro-Trump 501(c)4 organization that is not required to disclose its donors. During the Republican primaries, Ricketts had contributed to Our Principles PAC, a Super PAC dedicated to opposing Trump. Ricketts explained his changed position citing economic grounds, stating that Hillary Clinton "represents four more years of the Obama-Clinton economic policies that continue to cripple the middle class." Politico, Sept 2016
Together with his spouse, Ricketts contributed $2.2million to Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign.
On September 26, 2013, Louisiana College president Joe W. Aguillard presented Ricketts and his brother, Jim, with two of three Trustees' Distinguished Service Awards at the annual Founder's Day chapel.
Anti-Muslim and racist email controversy
On February 5, 2019, Splinter News released a cache of Ricketts emails from 2009 to 2014. He wrote that Islam could not create a civil society, that "we cannot ever let Islam become a large part of our society", and that "Muslims are naturally my (our) enemy." Included were Obama citizenship conspiracy theory emails, and claims that Obama favored Islam over other religions. Also included were multiple racist "joke" emails that he received and responded to positively; including slurs against Black and Hispanic people. He apologized for the emails after they were made public.
External links
Categories: 1941 Births, Living People, American Billionaires, American Financial Company Founders, American Chairpersons Of Corporations, American Chief Executives Of Financial Services Companies, American Philanthropists, Businesspeople From Omaha, Nebraska, Businesspeople From Wyoming, Creighton University Alumni, Nebraska Republicans, People From Jackson, Wyoming, Wyoming Republicans, 20th-century American Businesspeople, 21st-century American Businesspeople, Chicago Cubs Owners, Joe, People From Nebraska City, Nebraska, American Enterprise Institute
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