As one of the major players in Dumb Money, Gabe Plotkin is central to the movie’s story of financial rebellion – yet despite his apparent defeat in the market, what happened to him afterward is more complicated than simple failure. As shown in Dumb Money, Plotkin is the founder of the investment firm Melvin Capital Management. Although Dumb Money‘s ending explains that Plotkin was forced to shut down Melvin after the catastrophic losses the company incurred as a result of the GameStop saga, he has continued his career with several interesting moves.

Dumb Money tells the incredible true story of the GameStop short squeeze, a 2021 incident that rocked the financial world and caused major losses for several Wall Street investment funds. As seen in the movie, the story revolves around the video game retailer GameStop. Plotkin and his company, believing that GameStop’s business model was fundamentally flawed and that the company was destined for failure, bet heavily against it by taking a substantial short position on the stock. While this initially proved successful, a misfit band of Redditors tried to fight back against what they felt was corporate ownership of the stock market. The aftermath of the incident was disastrous for Melvin.

Gabe Plotkin Started A New Investment Company After Melvin Capital Shut Down

After incurring losses of around $6.8 billion during the GameStop short squeeze, Melvin Capital Management was financially crippled. Ultimately, despite being bailed out by fellow investment firms Citadel and Point 72, Melvin couldn’t recover, announcing its closure in May 2022. In a letter to investors, Plotkin wrote, “I have given everything I could, but more recently that has not been enough to deliver the returns you should expect. I now recognize that I need to step away from managing external capital” (via Insider). However, although this represented a failure for the company, it was not the end of Plotkin’s journey in the world of investment.

Following Melvin Capital’s closure, Plotkin launched a new investment company in 2022 – the same year his previous enterprise failed. However, this new business venture is very different from Melvin Capital’s model. Based in Miami, Tallwoods Capital LLC is, according to the company website, “a private single family office founded in 2022 that manages the personal wealth of Gabe Plotkin and his estate [sic.].” This means that it is only responsible for Plotkin’s personal portfolio rather than any outside investment, unlike Melvin Capital.

Gabe Plotkin Bought The Charlotte Hornets NBA Team

Perhaps Plotkin’s most eye-catching investment, both before and after the GameStop short squeeze, is his involvement in the NBA team, the Charlotte Hornets. Prior to Plotkin’s involvement, the Hornets were largely known thanks to the involvement of NBA Hall-Of-Famer Michael Jordan, who led a consortium of investors in purchasing a majority stake in 2010. Given his status within the game, Jordan’s involvement in the franchise was perhaps more noteworthy than the team’s court performances, as his purchase made him the league’s only Black majority owner.

Although Jordan’s involvement was a major coup for the Charlotte Hornets, Plotkin has commanded a share in the business since 2019. Initially involved at a minority level, Plotkin decided to purchase Jordan’s majority stake in June 2023 alongside business partner Rick Schnall. According to CBS, the deal was worth $3 billion, with Plotkin and Schnall thanking Jordan for “bringing stability to the franchise” as owner after its ratification.

How Much Gabe Plotkin’s Net Worth Is Currently

Gabe Plotkin Is A Multi-Millionaire

According to the website Celebrity Net Worth, Gabe Plotkin is worth about $400 million. Although this is an estimate, it has been cited by reputable sources such as Marca, lending the figure some legitimacy. However, while $400 million is certainly a lot of money, Plotkin’s wealth has almost certainly been greater at other points in his career.

Given the context around the GameStop short squeeze, Gabe Plotkin’s personal wealth has fluctuated quite violently over the course of his career. For example, according to Forbes, Plotkin earned around $300 million in 2017, rising to $850 million in 2020. However, this extraordinary wealth is mitigated by Melvin’s huge losses during the GameStop incident, which inevitably had an impact on Plotkin personally. As Dumb Money makes clear, the consequences for Plotkin weren’t genuinely calamitous, certainly compared to less wealthy individuals. Nevertheless, the story certainly changed the course his career.

What Happened To The Other People From Dumb Money?

The Story Didn’t Stop After The Credits Rolled

Gabe Plotkin was one of the most interesting character in Dumb Money, though he wasn’t the only real-life figure featured in director Craig Gillespie’s adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s The Antisocial Network. Characters such as Paul Dano’s Keith Gill were also real people, and others, like America Ferrera’s Jenny, were loosely based on individuals who took part in the true story of the GameStop Wall Street crash too. As for where they are today, many have had lives just as intriguing as Plotkin’s.

In Dumb Money, one of the chief architects of the play to take over the stock market was Pal Dano’s Keith Gill. Like Gabe Plotkin, Keith Gill was a completely nonfictional character who operated online with the username “Roaring Kitty”. Gill invested around $50,000 in GameStop stocks at first when shares were $5 a piece.

It’s not known exactly how much he made during the time Redditors took on the giants of Wall Street finance, but Gill was required to testify about his role in front of Congress, and he confirmed he didn’t take part for financial gain. It’s unknown what happened to Keith Gill after the events of Dumb Money, as he chose to maintain a life of privacy without capitalizing on his time in the spotlight.

Another character in Dumb Money who, like Gabe Plotkin, was based on a real person was Nick Offerman’s Kenneth Griffin. Griffin was the founder of the Citadel hedge fun, who helped bailout Plotkin’s Melvin Capital. In the time since the events of Dumb Money, Kenneth Griffin took part in a legal battle against Sony Pictures due to how Offerman depicted him in the film (via The Street).

The final noteworthy figures in Dumb Money directly taken from the true story were the founders of Robinhood Capital, Sebastian Stan’s Vlad Tanev and Rushi Kota’s Baiju Bhatt. Following their part in the GameStop Short Squeeze, Robinhood found itself hit with a class-action lawsuit. Congress found that their business practices were inadequate and amounted to financial negligence. However, unlike Gabe Plotkin’s company Melvin Capital, Robinhood Capital is still in operation.

As for the other characters in Dumb Money, many were simply normal people who got involved for a variety of different reasons, from the GameStop shortage being an exciting distraction through to dissatisfaction with the dominance of Wall Street over the stock market. For example, America Ferrara’s Dumb Money character, Jenny, was loosely based on the real Redditor Kim Campbell. Finding out what happened to those involved like Campbell is incredibly tricky, since they were regular working people when they took part, and remained so long after the events portrayed in, and the release of, Dumb Money.

Sources: Insider, Tallwoods Capital LLC, CBS, Celebrity Net Worth, Forbes