Newmark splits his time between San Francisco’s Cole Valley and the West Village in New York City. He describes himself as a non-practicing, secular Jew, joking that his rabbi was the late singer Leonard Cohen. Newmark married Eileen Whelpley in December 2012.
Net worth
In May 2017, Forbes estimated that Newmark’s net worth is at least $1.3 billion based on his ownership of at least 42% of Craigslist. He called a prior $400 million Forbes estimate of his net worth “bogus.” In an interview published in 2017 he said that “By monetizing Craigslist the way I did in 1999, I probably gave away already 90 percent or more of my potential net worth.” Newmark has described his business philosophy as “minimal profit” rather than non profit: “Basically I just decided on a different business model in ’99, nothing altruistic. While Silicon Valley VCs and bankers were telling me I should become a billionaire, I decided no one needs to be a billionaire — you should know when enough is enough. So I decided on a minimal business model, and that’s worked out pretty well. This means I can give away tremendous amounts of money to the nonprofits I believe in.”
Politics
In 2014, he was one of 60 Democratic Party donors who urged the creation of a system of public election funding.
In 2016, Newmark joined with the progressive RAD Campaign and Lincoln Park Strategies (founded by Democratic Party stalwart Stefan Hankin) to commission a poll examining user perceptions about social media conflicts during the 2016 election year.
Newmark has donated to the presidential campaign of Democratic Senator and former United States Secretary of State John Kerry. He also supported former President Barack Obama. In 2015, Variety reported that he contributed to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
