Fatih Özmen Net Worth

Fatih Özmen has an estimated net worth of $5.9 billion, according to Forbes Real-Time Billionaires, Fatih Özmen profile (figures as of October 20, 2026). That is up from $1.2 billion in 2019.

Fatih Özmen is a Turkish-American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur. He is the CEO and co-owner of Sierra Nevada Corporation, a private defense and aerospace company. He came to the United States in the 1980s to study engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. Before business, he was a national cycling champion in Turkey. His career at Sierra Nevada started in 1981, when he joined the company as an engineering intern and worked on systems and programs.

His wealth comes from building Sierra Nevada Corporation with his wife, Eren Özmen. In 1994, they bought the company in a management buyout and used their house as collateral for a loan. At the time, Sierra Nevada had 20 employees. It now has nearly 4,000 employees in over 40 locations. In 2021, the company spun off its space work into Sierra Space, a commercial space business working on the Dream Chaser cargo spaceplane.

How Fatih Özmen built his fortune

Özmen made his money through aerospace and defense. Sierra Nevada Corporation is the main source of his wealth, where he serves as CEO and co-owner. The company grew from a small business into a much larger operation after the 1994 buyout. It expanded its work in defense, engineering, and space, and the size of the business changed sharply over time as its workforce and footprint grew.

A big money driver came from major contracts and related space ventures. In 2024, Sierra Nevada Corporation won a $13.1 billion U.S. Air Force contract to develop the next E-4 "Doomsday" plane. Another key piece is Sierra Space, created in 2021 from Sierra Nevada's space capabilities. In March 2026, Sierra Space raised $550 million at an $8 billion valuation while developing the Dream Chaser cargo spaceplane.

Forbes net worth and recent changes

Forbes has tracked Özmen's fortune for years, and the estimate moved up and down before rising strongly in the middle of the decade. The gains line up with the scale of Sierra Nevada Corporation, its contract work, and the separate value tied to Sierra Space. Because his wealth is tied to private companies, changes in major deals, fundraising, and company value can have a large effect on the estimate.

The latest published estimate is Forbes' real-time figure of $5.9 billion as of October 20, 2026. That places him among the richest people tied to aerospace manufacturing. Recent business developments help explain the jump, especially the 2024 Air Force award and Sierra Space's 2026 fundraising round. Those events added fresh attention to the value of the companies he and Eren Özmen built from a much smaller base.