WWE billionaire Vince McMahon is having a tough year. Even before the coronavirus pandemic led to the cancellation of the live wrestling matches that are the bread and butter of his company’s business, the league’s ticket sales and subscriber base had been plummeting amid concerns over the brand’s creative direction under McMahon’s leadership. McMahon built WWE, a tightly scripted wrestling league, into an entertainment powerhouse after acquiring the brand from his father. Along the way, McMahon became one of the richest people in America and struck up friendships with other billionaires, including President Donald Trump. A representative of McMahon at WWE did not provide a comment on the CEO’s personal history, career at WWE, or net worth – but keep reading to learn more about the billionaire wrestling mogul. What you need to know about Joe Rogan, the world’s highest-paid podcaster Vincent McMahon, 75, was practically born into the wrestling business Grateful for the lessons taught to me by my father, who would have been 106 years old today. Happy birthday, Pop. pic.twitter.com/DKo5wXPXiU — Vince McMahon (@VinceMcMahon) July 6, 2020 McMahon was raised in North Carolina, US, by a wrestling promoter: his father, also named Vincent McMahon, founded WWE (then a regional league called Capitol Wrestling Co), and even McMahon’s grandfather Jesse worked in wrestling. Before joining the family business full-time, McMahon graduated from East Carolina University. McMahon took over the business that would eventually become WWE from his father in 1982 View this post on Instagram A post shared by bree-o mac (@likeamcmahon) on Aug 2, 2020 at 9:17pm PDT With McMahon at the helm, WWE went “from a regional operation into a global phenomenon” with events broadcast in 150 countries, according to Forbes. WWE used heavily scripted matches featuring a revolving cast of characters to build a base of loyal fans willing to pay monthly for access to WWE’s streaming service. Bloomberg reported in 2018 that the WWE Network was the 11th most popular streaming service in the nation, with 1.5 million subscribers. “There was a time when it came across as seedy, kind of playing to barroom brawls”, McMahon’s daughter Stephanie told Bloomberg in 2018, adding that: “Our lines of business are really more akin to Disney than they are to anything else.” How Japanese wrestler Asuka became WWE Raw Women’s Champion McMahon controls nearly every detail of WWE’s business McMahon “encapsulate[s] a thuggish old-school CEO”, Benchmark analyst Mike Hickey told Bloomberg back in February. He even gets involved in the league’s various storylines. McMahon often appears in the ring as “Mr McMahon”, a persona very similar to his real-life one, according to The Washington Post . McMahon’s character in the ring was once described by Bleacher Report’s Mike Chiara as a “jerk boss persona” who “had a ton of power, and which he abused for the sole purpose of making people’s lives miserable.” LightShed Partners analyst Brandon Ross wrote in early 2020, before the onset of the pandemic, that McMahon needed to loosen “his creative grip” because “WWE’s creative process required significant overhaul”, according to Bloomberg. 5 MMA superstars who made the crossover to fight in both WWE and UFC McMahon has also been criticised for how WWE treats its stars, including by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang In a critical segment on Last Week Tonight in 2019, John Oliver reported that WWE athletes have higher premature death rates than even NFL players, who, studies suggest, often suffer high rates of brain injuries. Oliver called McMahon “morally subterranean” for not guaranteeing WWE talent health insurance, retirement accounts, or paid leave and workers’ compensation if they get injured, and aired interviews with athletes who said they continued to work while injured because they could not afford to take time off. Who is Malaysia’s Nor Diana, the first hijab-wearing wrestling champion? Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang echoed Oliver’s critiques on Twitter in September, adding that WWE prevents wrestlers from using their likenesses to profit through third parties. “Come on, Vince — you’ve already deprived the folks breaking their backs for you of health care, security, recovery time, retirement benefits and fair treatment re: licenses and royalties”, Yang tweeted. “At least let them make a living off their own names. Many of them need it.” If I’m not the Secretary of Labor I’m pretty confident I’ll have his or her number to talk about the ridiculous classification of WWE wrestlers as independent contractors while controlling their name and likeness for years, even for something as benign as Cameo. — Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) September 5, 2020 The criticism has only escalated since the start of the pandemic. In April, while other professional sports shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus, WWE went ahead with its signature WrestleMania event without a live audience. WWE said it modified its production process to film with only essential staff, but the BBC reported that the league could have done more to limit interpersonal contact on set, including limiting matches to two wrestlers and using static cameras instead of manually operated ones. Despite mounting criticism, WWE executives said the show had to go on because “people need to be entertained”. Multiple WWE employees eventually tested positive for Covid-19, including announcers Renee Young and Kayla Braxton, and producers Adam Pearce and Jamie Noble. 5 things to know about Paige VanZant, UFC’s most popular female star WWE has made McMahon extremely wealthy, but he has filed for personal bankruptcy before Before WWE, McMahon and his wife Linda invested in a struggling construction company in the 1970s on the advice of their then-accountant. “We signed personally on some loans from the bank to float that business for a while, and we didn’t understand [the industry]”, McMahon said, according to CNBC. “It went belly up. We tried for over a year to pay off the loans and we just couldn’t do it any more, so we had to declare bankruptcy.” The couple apparently lost their home and Linda’s car during the bankruptcy proceedings. Jack Ma vs Mukesh Ambani – who’s the richest man in Asia now? McMahon is good friends with President Trump McMahon has known the president for years, according to NPR. Trump even appeared at a WWE event in 2007, where he tackled McMahon to the ground and shaved his head. The billionaires’ relationship isn’t just personal, however. McMahon and his wife gave millions to both Trump’s 2016 campaign and his now-defunct foundation, according to Politico. Meet the Trumps: how America’s 1st family built an empire in 4 generations McMahon’s wife, Linda, is a former Trump Administration official Before launching her career in politics, Linda McMahon was a WWE executive and ran two failed campaigns for a Connecticut Senate seat, according to Politico. However, after Trump took office in 2017, Linda was given the top spot at the Small Business Administration – a government agency that helps entrepreneurs – where she served until April 2019. “Linda McMahon has done an incredible job”, Trump said after her resignation. “She has been a superstar.” Linda McMahon now runs the pro-Trump political action committee called America First Action. Kimberley Guilfoyle: the model, Fox host and viral meme dating Trump Jr. The McMahons have two children I’m lucky to have amazing kids like @shanemcmahon and @StephMcMahon . Happy Father’s Day to all those who cherish the gift of fatherhood. pic.twitter.com/JSFK1ZQx6m — Vince McMahon (@VinceMcMahon) June 21, 2020 The McMahons have two children. Daughter Stephanie is WWE’s chief brand officer and is married to wrestler Paul “Triple H” Levesque. Their son Shane also works for WWE. McMahon once spent US$200 million launching a new football league to rival the NFL McMahon’s upstart football league, called the XFL, played a single season in 2001 that Business Insider’s James Pasley described as “a violent and sexualised version of the NFL.” The league made its big comeback this past February but was forced to cancel its season just five weeks in because of the pandemic. The company filed for bankruptcy in March, and laid off nearly all of its employees. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson , along with ex-wife and business partner Dany Garcia, and private investment firm RedBird Capital, bought the league ahead of its scheduled bankruptcy auction in August for a reported US$15 million. 5 facts about Simone Johnson, The Rock’s daughter and WWE rising star The coronavirus pandemic brought hard times for WWE, and sunk McMahon’s net worth View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jaylon (@sashaxricochet) on Oct 13, 2020 at 6:49pm PDT WWE shares plunged more than 40 per cent between December and when the coronavirus pandemic took hold of the United States in March, according to Bloomberg. The pandemic certainly didn’t help, cutting into ticket sales from live events, but WWE already had troubles coming into 2020. Bloomberg reported in February that the wrestling league’s ticket sales and share price were both in free fall because it had oversaturated its audience with seven hours of programming each week, and McMahon was hindering WWE’s recovery by refusing to switch up the company’s business model. WWE’s struggles put McMahon in such a financial bind that the billionaire signed a prepaid variable forward contract with Morgan Stanley in March, allowing him to receive cash in exchange for agreeing to sell shares in March 2024. McMahon’s net worth dropped so much that he lost his spot on the Forbes 400 ranking of the wealthiest Americans. Forbes now estimates his fortune at US$1.7 billion. Want more stories like this? Sign up here . Follow STYLE on Facebook , Instagram , YouTube and Twitter . This article originally appeared on Business Insider.