Eyebrow-Raising Details About Ron DeSantis' Lavish Lifestyle

Ron DeSantis' dream of becoming president did not come true when he ran for the Republican nomination in 2024, only to crash badly against Donald Trump. That doesn't mean DeSantis is struggling though. He's living large in Florida's Governor's Mansion, but he didn't come in as rich as you might imagine (by political standards, that is). In 2018, his financial disclosure based on the year prior revealed his net worth to be a little over $310,000. However, a 2023 Washington Post report showed that DeSantis got some perks from wealthy donors right after he won his first election and was getting ready to take over the state.

According to the report, DeSantis flew on private planes at least a half-dozen times for undisclosed trips at the end of 2018, while also receiving meals and a place to stay. None of the things DeSantis enjoyed were listed as official gifts. He was connected with these experiences thanks to a variety of rich donors, which included a ride to the Augusta National Golf Club in developer Mori Hosseini's plane. He also put a golf simulator in DeSantis' residence, and a highway project Hosseini was angling for eventually received millions of dollars of pandemic relief money from the federal government, thanks to DeSantis.

DeSantis' then-lawyer, Ben Gibson, referenced an Ethics Commission provision in a 2018 memo, which stated that it was all right for the new governor to take these flights with his wealthy friends as long as he paid what the price would have been to fly coach instead. According to the Washington Post, it's unknown exactly how everything was paid for, but a spokesperson for DeSantis stated those trips were above board.

During this time, leading Ron DeSantis' transition team, and the one responsible for such things, was Susie Wiles. She was fired a year later and came out just fine because it wasn't Ron who won the presidency in 2024, but Donald Trump, who made Wiles his chief of staff. Ron would recover nicely enough. A 2024 disclosure from the Florida Commission on Ethics revealed that Ron is worth approximately $2 million, with $625,500 of that coming from his 2023 book "The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival."

There was nothing shady about his huge book deal, but the same can't be said for the scandal that tainted the reputation of Ron and his wife, Florida's first lady Casey DeSantis. Casey founded a charity called Hope Florida, which, as reported by WUSF, was accused of improperly using millions from a Medicaid settlement to fight an amendment on recreational marijuana. The head of the committee leading that fight was Ron's chief of staff, and the eventual Florida Attorney General, James Uthmeier. At the time that story broke, Ron might have wished he could fly off to Augusta to escape the mess.