Rumble's market cap sat at above $3.6 billion on Friday.

Plenty of people got presents at the end of December, but Rumble founder and CEO Chris Pavlovski had a particularly lucrative holiday season. On December 20, Pavlovski’s cash-strapped YouTube alternative, which claims the mantle of free speech and is popular with the political right, announced a $775 million investment from crypto giant Tether. That sent Rumble’s stock soaring by more than 100% over the next week and made Pavlovski a billionaire.

Forbes estimates that Pavlovski is now worth around $1.3 billion, thanks to his 25% stake in Rumble (plus options to acquire an additional 6% stake with a bargain-basement exercise price of three cents per share). And that’s with Rumble’s volatile stock down 17% to $13.43 per share Friday, after closing at a peak of $16.27 on December 26.

Not included in Forbes’ estimate of Pavlovski’s fortune: “earnout” shares and options that could boost his stake in Rumble to as high as 44%, if the company’s stock trades above $17.50 per share for 20 days in a 30 day period prior to September 2027—a scenario that now seems a little less outlandish than it did a month ago. (Due to his status as Rumble’s founder, Pavlovski owns a special class of stock that entitles him to 85% of the company’s voting power.)

“The strength in the stock has been driven by [an] improved balance sheet [due to] the Tether investment and the more........

© Forbes