Social Media's 'Wallstreet Trapper' Offers a Shot at Financial Freedom
Wallstreet Trapper’s net worth isn’t public knowledge, but the YouTube star has worked hard to give his daughter—and his followers—financial freedom.
April 14 2021, Published 3:57 p.m. ET
No one seems to know Wallstreet Trapper's net worth, but even if they did, their estimates probably wouldn’t be accurate, as he tweeted in December 2020.
“Y’all be tryna Google people’s net worth,” the financial educator, born Leon Howard, wrote at the time. “Once you get a certain level of bread, you learn how to hide it in LLCs and trusts. Own nothing, control everything…”
One clue to Howard’s fortune, though, is the recent press release that touted that he has built a seven-figure business. Here’s what else we know about this investor and CEO.
Howard taught himself about the stock market in prison.
According to an Earn Your Leisure profile, Howard spent years behind bars at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, starting from when he was a teen. During his time in prison, Howard did hard labor and cut down trees for 8 cents an hour.
However, his life trajectory changed when a fellow inmate told him about the stock market. After that pivotal conversation, Howard started reading about the market in books and newspapers and watching CNBC every morning.
Upon his release, Howard worked as an ironworker and invested 70 percent of his income. Then, after forming a financial strategy, he changed careers and became a full-time investor and entrepreneur.
“My childhood taught me resilience,” he said in a recent press release. “There is nothing that can limit me because I know how to adapt, survive and make the best out of my situations.”
Wallstreet Trapper is dedicated to empowering urban America.
Howard is the founder of From the Trap to Wallstreet, which is a movement “dedicated to empowering and improving the financial mindset of urban America,” as he says on the movement’s website.
“The term ‘From The Trap’ refers to the trap as a state or condition of a people being financially trapped and unable to find the path to financial freedom,” he explains. “It also refers to the trapped mindset created from a place where illegal activities ultimately devour people and lead to them being funneled in a justice system where they are stripped of everything financially and emotionally.”
Therefore, the movement's name “symbolizes escaping the trap to arrive on Wall Street and adapting into new surroundings, mindset, and lifestyle.”
Howard also offers financial advice through his YouTube channel, Wallstreet Trapper, where he currently has 99.5k subscribers and 1.7 million views; his Instagram account, @wall_street_trapper, where he has 590k followers; and his Twitter account, @Wallstreet504, where he has 23.7k followers.
Howard has worked to give his daughter financial freedom.
Howard invests with his daughter’s future in mind, which he said in an April 9 interview on Power 105.1 FM’s The Breakfast Club. He said, “So, Wall Street is this big old machine that prints money every day, all day,” he said. “I just got to know how to operate the machine. If I learn how to operate the machine, I got a job forever, and a job is just to produce freedom for myself and then let my daughter and I start inheriting freedom.”
He also said, “So, my daughter—5 years old now—she’s got six figures invested. I’ve been investing since she was 1. Like, let’s normalize that. Let’s normalize, ‘All right, you want to go to college? Cool, you ain’t got to go in debt to go, because I’ve been investing for you since you was 2. You’ll be a millionaire before you’re 15.’”
“That’s the goal: to give her freedom,” he concluded. “Not just money, but give her freedom.”