John Poulos Led Dominion Voting System's $1.6B Lawsuit Against FOX — How Much Is He Worth?

Dominion Voting System sued Fox Corporation in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit — so how much is CEO John Poulos worth? Here's what we know.

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April 19 2023, Updated 1:30 p.m. ET

John Poulos testifies before the House Administration Committee Jan. 9, 2020
Source: Getty Images

Back in 2020, Dominion Voting Systems was dragged into the headlines after Fox News alleged that the company committed election fraud and manipulated vote counts, ultimately leading to Donald Trump's loss in the presidential election.

Shortly after, Dominion filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox Corporation, stating that "lies and misinformation have severely damaged our company and diminished the credibility of U.S. elections." Company employees have also been threatened.

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Leading the company is CEO John Poulos, who appeared on 60 Minutes to further dispute the election fraud claims, as well as allegations that Dominion was founded in Venezuela to rig elections for the country's late former president Hugo Chávez.

"I can cut all of this short, we were founded in Toronto, and there is nothing to do with Venezuela," Poulos shared. So, what else should you know about Poulos and Dominion Voting Systems? Here's what we know about the company and John Poulos's net worth.

John Poulos started Dominion Voting Systems in 2002 with co-founder James Hoover.

Dominion CEO John Poulos addresses lawsuit against MyPillow during CNBC interview.
Source: CNBC

Dominion Voting Systems was founded in 2002 by John Poulos and James Hoover. The company sells electronic voting hardware and develops software and has headquarters in Canada, the United States, and Serbia, where its development team is located.

In 2018, Dominion was acquired by Staple Street Capital, a private equity firm.

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"Our senior management team is extremely pleased to partner with Staple Street Capital, which has a proven track record of successfully investing in growing mid-size businesses," Poulos said in a press release at the time. "Given the opportunities on our horizon, this is the ideal time for us to add financial resources and an experienced strategic partner to help us meet market demand, better serve customers and invest in evolving security initiatives."

Dominion Voting Systems is the second-largest election system vendor in the U.S.

Since its acquisition, Dominion is one of the three vendors that control 88 percent of the market when it comes to the election systems industry.

According to Forbes, Dominion was paid $118.3 million to provide election services from 2017 to 2019 from 19 states.

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Currently, Dominion has a $107 million 10-year contract with Georgia, received $52 million from the state of Arizona, and an eight-year contract with California worth $16.2 million — just to name a few.

However, according to their lawsuit, Fox's claims about voter fraud "recklessly disregarded the truth" and "deeply damaged [its] once-thriving business."

A look at Dominion CEO John Poulos's net worth.

Since Dominion Voting Systems isn't a publicly traded company, Poulos's salary and compensation aren't on public record. However, according to outlets, Poulos is worth an estimated $120 million thanks to his $1.5 million salary and $15 million in total compensation.

In 2010, he was one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40 and was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Award in 2013 for his philanthropic work.

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John Poulos

CEO and Founder Dominion Voting Systems

Net worth: $120 million

John Poulos is the founder and CEO of Dominion Voting Systems.

Birthplace: Toronto, Canada

Birthdate: 1973

Education: University of Toronto (B.S.), INSEAD (MBA)

Along with his work at Dominion, Poulos is a youth hockey coach and a part of an alliance of Greek-Canadian entrepreneurs.

Poulos has been and continues to be quite busy thanks to Dominion's defamation lawsuits against Fox, Newsmax Media Inc., MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and Rudy Giuliani.

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John Poulos led Dominion in its lawsuit against Fox and secured a favorable outcome.

On April 18, 2023, just before Fox, owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch, and Dominion were headed to trial to sort out their differences, Fox agreed to settle the case for $787 million. PBS reported that some of the records that were released showed "Fox hosts and executives did not believe the claims by Trump’s allies but aired them anyway, in part to win back viewers who were fleeing the network."

Fox agreed to the lower amount (not the $1.6 billion Dominion was seeking) as it felt "the amount greatly overstated the value" of the company.

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