Michael Dorrell: Australian worth $14 billion lives next to Donald Trump in Palm Beach

Sydneysider Michael Dorrell bolted so fast up the nation’s rich lists he arrived this year with a near $14 billion fortune and Florida mansion just a golf drive from the Mar-a-Lago home of US President Donald Trump.

As a club and neighbourhood member, Mr Dorrell says he visits Mar-a-Lago regularly and takes friends to socialise within the President’s inner circle.

When in Sydney Mr Dorrell, 52, stays in the beachside suburb of Tamarama, cycles daily for leisure, and manages Stonepeak, the infrastructure investment business he co-founded in 2011.

He was recently listed as the 9th richest Australian and the wealthiest ever to have made their fortune outside the mining, real estate, industrial companies or technology.

In 2024 he paid a Palm Beach, Florida, record $US150 million ($225 million) for the 11-bedroom Tarpon Island, which includes a 98-foot pool, floodlit tennis court, gym, spa, sauna, steam room, cold plunge pool, two private yacht docks and private bridge to access the home.

Influential school days

Born in Caringbah, Sydney, Mr Dorrell’s father was a teacher at Port Hacking High School, before the family of Cronulla Sharks fans moved to Griffith in regional New South Wales.

On a scholarship, he attended St Joseph’s College, a Catholic boarding school in Hunters Hill, before studying commerce and law as an undergraduate at the University of New South Wales.

“Joey’s I see as, maybe, the big turning point in my life,” he told the Inside The Rope podcast. “As I got older I realised how important friendships are and you don’t get to recreate, that often, those great friendships you get in school or university that often. And at Joey’s it was incredibly special as we all boarded together.”

He’s now a major donor to the school.

Drinking session

Despite being an excellent mathematician at school, he left UNSW with a modest university record studying law. This meant he had to hustle his way into a job at investment bank Macquarie Group.

“I didn’t take university that seriously, but in any event I got into Macquarie because they had a kind of drinks session,” he told the Inside the Rope podcast. “If you didn’t get in the traditional way you could turn up to the drinks night, and you get in that way. So that’s how I got into Macquarie.”

In 2001, age 25, he volunteered to move to the US with Macquarie where he continued to play touch football while working as an infrastructure investor and deal maker on Wall Street alongside the group’s now chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake.

After more than a decade at Macquarie he joined US investment giant Blackstone. Where he became a senior managing director in private equity and co-head of infrastructure investment.

In 2011 he co-founded Stonepeak with Trent Vichie to satisfy an entrepreneurial desire to work for himself in the booming infrastructure investment market.

At Stonepeak he became known for turning infrastructure investing into a major asset class after it was pioneered in the US by his team at Macquarie.

Today, Stonepeak has around $US84 billion in assets under management across infrastructure such as ports, roads, and data centres on behalf of more than 330 global investors, typically large pension funds.

“If I had to describe my job the most important thing I do is investment review, so I’m no longer going out and finding things to invest in as we have a team of hundreds to do that, but as things get more serious on a potential investment I get very involved,” he told the podcast.

Health, fitness, longevity

Mr Dorrell attributes his life success to exercise, healthy eating, and a strict sleep routine. Despite getting into Macquarie via a drinks party as a young man, he says alcohol plays little role now in his life.

“I can go weeks and weeks without a drink, a big night for me is probably two or three drinks. I’ve just got so much I’ve got to get through most days I guess I’ve learned it’s not a path I want to be on,” he told the podcast.

He works-out eight to nine times a week, often cycling, and rarely goes to bed after 10pm. His grandmother lived beyond 100.

Married with children, Mr Dorrell’s business success has helped him amass private investments that reportedly includes a $US41 million ($62 million) townhouse in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

The billionaire’s political views are unclear, although he’s sung the praises of Mar-a-Lago. He’s acknowledged the business community has found the President’s trade tariffs difficult to navigate.

Stonepeak declined to offer an interview when contacted for comment.