Jordan Belfort

Belfort was born in 1962 in the Bronx, a borough of New York City, to Jewish parents, Maxwell "Max" Belfort and Leah (née Markowitz). They were both accountants. He has an older brother named Robert. His paternal grandfather, Jack Belfort (1904–1970), was an immigrant from Russia, while his grandmother was a Second Generation American born to Lithuanian parents in New Jersey. Belfort was raised in Bayside, Queens. Between completing high school and starting college, Belfort and his close childhood friend Elliot Loewenstern earned $20,000 selling scooped Italian ice from styrofoam coolers to people at Jones Beach Field 2 and West-end 2.

Belfort went on to graduate from American University with a degree in biology. He planned to use the money earned with Loewenstern to pay for dental school, and enrolled at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. However, the dean of the dental school gave a welcoming speech on the first day in which he said, "The golden age of dentistry is over. If you're here simply because you're looking to make a lot of money, you're in the wrong place." Belfort subsequently elected not to attend the graduate program.

Early ventures

Belfort became a door-to-door meat and seafood salesman on Long Island, New York. He claims in interviews and his memoirs that the business was an initial success; he grew his meat-selling business to employ several workers and sell 5,000 pounds (2,300 kilograms) of beef and fish a week. The business ended up failing, and he filed for bankruptcy at 25.

According to his memoirs and interviews, a family friend helped him find a job as a trainee stockbroker at L.F. Rothschild. Belfort says he was laid off after that firm experienced financial difficulties related to the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987.

Stratton Oakmont

Belfort founded Stratton Oakmont as a franchise of Stratton Securities, then later bought out the original founder. Stratton Oakmont functioned as a boiler room that marketed penny stocks and defrauded investors with "pump and dump" stock sales. During his years at Stratton, Belfort led a life of lavish parties and intensive use of recreational drugs, especially methaqualone—sold to him under the brand name "Quaalude"—that resulted in an addiction. Stratton Oakmont at one point employed over 1,000 stock brokers and was involved in stock issues totaling more than $1 billion, including being behind the initial public offering for footwear company Steve Madden. The firm was targeted by law enforcement officials throughout nearly its entire history, and its notoriety inspired the film Boiler Room (2000), as well as the biopic The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).

Stratton Oakmont was under near-constant scrutiny from the National Association of Securities Dealers (now the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) from 1989 onward. Finally, in December 1996, the NASD expelled Stratton Oakmont, putting it out of business. Belfort was then indicted for securities fraud and money laundering in 1999.

Belfort became an informant for the FBI and wore a wire against numerous partners and associates, later testifying against many of them. On July 18, 2003, Belfort was sentenced to four years in prison. Belfort served 22 months of the sentence at the Taft Correctional Institution in Taft, California, in exchange for a plea deal with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for running pump-and-dump scams that led to investor losses of approximately $200 million. Belfort was ordered to pay back $110.4 million that he swindled from stock buyers. Belfort shared a cell with Tommy Chong while serving his sentence, and Chong encouraged him to write about his experiences as a stockbroker. The pair remained friends after their release from prison, with Belfort crediting Chong for his new career direction as a motivational speaker and writer. At a motivational talk that he delivered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on May 19, 2014, Belfort stated: "I got greedy.... Greed is not good. Ambition is good, passion is good. Passion prospers. My goal is to give more than I get, that's a sustainable form of success.... Ninety-five per cent of the business was legitimate.... It was all brokerage firm issues. It was all legitimate, nothing to do with liquidating stocks." Federal prosecutors and SEC officials involved in the case, however, have said, "Stratton Oakmont was not a real Wall Street firm, either literally or figuratively."

Belfort married his first wife, Denise Lombardo, in 1985. While running Stratton Oakmont, Belfort and Lombardo were divorced. He later married Nadine Caridi, a British-born, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn-raised model whom he met at a party. He had two children with her. Belfort and Caridi ultimately separated following her claims of domestic violence, which were fueled by his problems with drug addiction and infidelity. They divorced in 2005.

Belfort is an avid tennis player.

Belfort was the final owner of the luxury yacht Nadine, which was originally built for French fashion designer and businesswoman Coco Chanel in 1961. The yacht was renamed after Caridi. In June 1996, the yacht sank off the east coast of Sardinia and frogmen from the Italian Navy special forces unit COMSUBIN rescued all who were aboard the vessel. Belfort said that he insisted on sailing out in high winds against the advice of his captain, resulting in the sinking of the vessel when waves smashed the foredeck hatch.

In 2021, a hacker stole $300,000 in digital tokens from Belfort's cryptocurrency wallet.

In the 1990s, Belfort donated $100,000 to the Republican Party and $2,000 to Al D'Amato's reelection campaign in the 1992 United States Senate election in New York. Despite calling himself "a liberal at heart", with "social views [that] are liberal; abortion and stuff like that", Belfort said that in the run-up to the 2016 United States presidential election, he "became very pro-Trump.... And then when I saw what happened after he won, I was like‚ 'this country is worse than I thought!'. There's obviously such a problem with the liberals, I'd never seen anything like it." Ultimately Belfort voted for Donald Trump because he agreed with Trump on government size and immigration policy. Despite his support for Trump he has also acknowledged that Trump's rhetoric is divisive. During the 2020 Democratic primaries, he criticized Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for policy proposals that would affect financial institutions, saying, "What frightens me about a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren is like they think that government is the answer but the policies that they're talking about will literally destroy the fabric of the country."

An investigation led by 7News and The Sunday Mail uncovered links between Belfort and employment company Career Pathways Australia run by Paul Conquest, who also has majority-ownership of Face to Face Training. These two brands were heavily promoted at Belfort workshops held at Brisbane's Eatons Hill Hotel. Belfort reportedly gave two workshops on Sales for the staff of Face to Face Training.

Face to Face Training received $3.9 million from the state government during FY-2014 and $6.34 million during FY-2015 for its training and assessment services. The majority of this money was expected to be spent on service training and certification which did not happen. 9 News Australia called the training program a scam and the certification program a "tick and flick" in its 60 Minutes segment.