Charles Koch

Charles Koch is the longtime chairman and co-CEO of Koch, an industrial conglomerate with about $125 billion in annual revenue that’s the second-largest private company in the country. But he is most famous as either—depending on whom you ask—a free-market champion or a corrupter of American politics. Koch and his late brother David embarked on a decades-long quest to limit government regulation. The 89-year-old’s political network is still going strong, spending heavily in the 2024 presidential election and in support of the recent Republican tax plan. His next challenge, though, may be his hardest to date: A conservative advocacy organization he backs is representing a Florida company currently suing President Donald Trump for imposing tariffs on Chinese imports. Though Koch is not involved in the case, it's a showdown for the ages between Koch’s old-school conservative free-market absolutism and the current administration’s protectionist trade policies.