Simon received the data for the 1990 Forbes 400 Richest Americans list one day before the new issue of Forbes magazine was released on September 2nd.
The next day, Monday, September 3rd, when the new issue of Forbes magazine was officially released, a large number of North American media outlets, who had been closely following this year's Forbes rich list, almost simultaneously published related reports.
Evidently, these media outlets had also obtained relevant information in advance.
$21 billion!
This was the figure for Simon's personal net worth announced on the 1990 Forbes 400 Richest Americans list.
He was, without a doubt, in first place.
Furthermore, Simon also became the first super-rich individual on the Forbes 400 list whose personal net worth exceeded $10 billion.
Sam Walton, who was originally expected to achieve this title, had already distributed his Walmart shares among his various children.
Aside from Simon, the second-ranked individual on this year's list was still John Kluge, last year's runner-up, whose personal net worth had directly dropped to $5.6 billion, a huge difference from Simon.
Further down the list:
Third place: Warren Buffett, $3.3 billion.
Fourth place: Ronald Perelman, $2.87 billion.
Fifth place: Henry Hillman, $2.65 billion.
Outside the top five, from sixth to ninth place, Barbara Cox Anthony and Anne Cox Chambers, sisters, along with Samuel Newhouse and Donald Newhouse, brothers, were tied, with each having a personal net worth of $2.6 billion.
From tenth to seventeenth place, there was also a long string of ties, including Sam Walton and his four children who control the Walton Group, the two Pritzker brothers who control the famous Hyatt Hotel Group, and finally, Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
These eight billionaires each had a fortune of $2.5 billion.
Affected by the economic recession triggered by the US debt crisis, the rankings on this year's list changed significantly, and many billionaires saw their assets shrink substantially.
Sam Redstone, Ted Arison, and Ross Perot, who were ranked high last year, even fell out of the top ten entirely.
The economic recession causing a sharp decrease in the wealth of billionaires should have been a major focus of this year's list.
However, when the new list was released, almost all media attention was drawn to one name that stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Simon's personal net worth of $21 billion, compared to last year's $6 billion, had more than tripled.
However, after Forbes magazine's detailed listing and analysis of Simon's personal assets, the $21 billion net worth sparked less controversy than last year.
Among Simon's various assets, the most attention-grabbing this year was likely the large sum of cash he earned through Cersei Capital's continuous operations in the Japanese financial market and the crude oil futures market.
The exposed figure for this cash asset at the beginning of the year had already reached $4.5 billion.
After operations in the crude oil futures market in the first half of the year, Forbes magazine estimated Simon's overseas cash assets to be around $8 billion.
This single item alone exceeded Simon's total personal net worth of $6 billion last year.
Subsequently, Forbes magazine gave a valuation of $8 billion to $10 billion for Daenerys Entertainment's assets.
According to Forbes magazine, to avoid the controversy caused by last year's valuation, Forbes invited multiple Wall Street financial and accounting teams to participate in this valuation, ultimately arriving at a valuation range of $8 billion to $10 billion.
Is Daenerys Entertainment worth that much?
In response to this question, Forbes magazine provided Daenerys Entertainment's company financial report for the first half of 1990.
A post-tax net profit of $573 million in just two quarters surpassed any of the Hollywood Seven.
Moreover, with the subsequent revenue from video tapes, television, merchandise, and other channels from its numerous blockbuster films, as long as there are no serious project failures and losses in the next few years, Daenerys Entertainment is capable of maintaining an annual net profit of $1 billion for the next two to three years.
Comparing this to the Fortune 400 list of US companies in the first half of the year, for the previous fiscal year, among companies with a net profit of around $1 billion, the lowest market value company, Boeing, recently reached a market value of $15.6 billion.
The other two daily necessities giants, Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson, which also had net profits around $1 billion, had market values of $21.8 billion and $18.6 billion, respectively.
Therefore, based on profit scale, Daenerys Entertainment's valuation of $8 billion to $10 billion is definitely on the low side.
At the same time, Daenerys Entertainment owns three subsidiary film studios with numerous successful projects, Daenerys Television Company, a 35% stake in Blockbuster, Blizzard Entertainment, a 35% stake in EA, the potentially goldmine-level Marvel Entertainment, and DC Cinematic Universe rights, among other tangible assets.
All these assets are sufficient to support Daenerys Entertainment's enormous valuation.
Clearly, just the cash held under Simon's personal name and the Daenerys Entertainment assets, when combined, already approached the personal net worth figure Forbes magazine provided for Simon.
In addition to this, Westeros Company also owned a large number of listed and unlisted company assets.
Of the listed technology company stocks purchased during the 1987 stock market crash, 19 companies still remained, with a total market value exceeding $26 billion.
Among them, Westeros Company's heavily invested Microsoft and Intel currently have market values of $6.3 billion and $7.6 billion, respectively.
Just the 20% and 15% stakes in these two companies brought Simon over $2.5 billion in wealth.
For other companies like Sun, Oracle, AMD, Silicon Graphics, Adobe, and Autodesk, Westeros Company's holdings were also worth $1 billion.
In total, the 19 listed technology companies brought Simon $3.5 billion in personal wealth.
In addition, unlisted companies such as Cisco, America Online, and Ygritte, as well as overseas Nokia and the non-tech Melisandre Company, even if only the Westeros Company's share of these assets is calculated, their total value would be between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.
Moreover, this year, Cersei Capital must also be added to Simon's personal assets.
This large private equity fund, which officially established its headquarters in New York at the beginning of this year, has already earned industry respect with just two operations in the Japanese financial market and the crude oil futures market.
Even with a conservative estimate, its value would not be less than $1 billion.
Finally, Simon's large number of real estate and land assets must also be included, with an estimated value of $500 million.
All these combined, minus the less than $1.5 billion in debt across the entire Westeros system, Simon's personal assets are roughly between $21 billion and $23.5 billion.
Forbes magazine only took the lowest value of this estimated range.
However, even this conservative figure of $21 billion created a series of unprecedented achievements.
Not only was Simon the first super-rich individual in the United States to have a personal net worth exceeding $10 billion, but he was also destined to surpass Japanese real estate magnate Yoshiaki Tsutsumi to become the world's richest person on the 1990 global rich list that Forbes would subsequently release.
While the general public could only admire, praise, resent, question, or fantasize about what $21 billion truly meant and how much it could buy when faced with Simon's personal net worth on the Forbes list, the US capital market reacted very directly after the Forbes list was published.
Listed companies related to the Westeros system, whether technology stocks like Microsoft and Intel, or other industries like Blockbuster or EA, all saw a significant rise in their stock prices in the following week.
The 'Westeros Portfolio' of that year was also frequently mentioned again by the media.
Immediately after, to capitalize on the momentum of Simon's personal net worth reaching a new high on the Forbes list, Oracle hastily released its financial report for the previous quarter on September 6th.
For the financial quarter from June to August 1990, Oracle's revenue was $207 million, with a loss of $36 million.
In its quarterly financial report, Oracle candidly admitted that its aggressive expansion strategy and erroneous sales methods over the past two years were the main reasons for this loss, and stated that it would undergo significant company adjustments.
Several Oracle executives responsible for sales would resign subsequently, and a large-scale layoff of around 400 people would also be implemented to reduce corporate operating costs.
Not only that, but in the accompanying handwritten letter to shareholders in the financial report, Larry Ellison confidently stated that everything was under control and specifically highlighted Westeros Company's previous increase in its stake in Oracle.
If it weren't for Westeros Company's increased stake, the enormous quarterly loss of $36 million, and Oracle's belated admission of its operational strategy errors, countless angry shareholders would undoubtedly want to rub Larry Ellison into the ground.
However, the fact was that after Oracle's quarterly financial report was released on Thursday, September 6th, the company's stock price did not plummet as Wall Street analysts had expected on the following Thursday and Friday.
Although there was no significant surge either, the single-day trading volume decreased by 80% compared to before the quarterly financial report was released.
Evidently, many shareholders were no longer rashly selling Oracle's stock but instead began to observe.
Some Oracle shareholders who could connect with the Westeros system also tried every possible means to inquire about Simon's attitude towards Oracle.
On the following Saturday, Oracle released another announcement: in addition to James Raybould, president of Westeros Corporation, Carol Bartz, president of Ygritte (a subsidiary of Westeros Company), would also join Oracle's board of directors.
Westeros Company subsequently officially issued a statement supporting Oracle's current chairman and CEO, Larry Ellison, to continue managing the company.
At the same time, Westeros Company would also continue to hold Oracle's shares for the long term.
Westeros Company's official stance temporarily calmed down shareholders who had lost patience with the current management due to Oracle's stock price falling by 70% in the past year.
Even if some shareholders were still dissatisfied with Larry Ellison, they understood that with the combined efforts of Westeros Company and Larry Ellison, it was unlikely that other shareholders would be able to replace the current management.
However, dissenting voices were not absent.
The Wall Street Journal believed that Simon's continued increase in Oracle stock and strong support for the current management, who had made serious operational errors, seemed very foolish.
If Westeros Company had sold its shares at Oracle's highest stock price last year, Simon could have received a return of over 500% compared to its investments in recent years.
Moreover, even if they were to insist on holding onto the company, replacing the current management was essential.
The Wall Street Journal also cited Apple as an example.
After ousting founder Steve Jobs, who had once caused huge losses to the company due to the unrealistic Macintosh project, Apple's revenue and profits had been continuously growing in recent years.
Even with the recent overall decline in the federal stock market due to the war, Apple's market value still exceeded $6 billion.
Simon could roughly understand that the purpose of this article was not so simple.
Rumours of internal problems at Oracle had not been circulating for just a day or two, and many short sellers on Wall Street had recently been shorting the company's stock before the announcement of Oracle's new quarterly financial report.
Now, due to Simon's strong support, Oracle's stock price did not experience the anticipated sharp decline after the release of the new quarterly financial report, and even saw a certain rebound.
Those who had shorted Oracle's stock would naturally not be content with this.
Aside from the Oracle matter, from September 3rd, when Forbes magazine was released, various invitations poured in like a tide towards Simon, and the attention of countless media outlets refocused on him.
His every move once again began to receive widespread attention.
To prevent the planned dual-line operation from being leaked prematurely, Simon had no choice but to temporarily shake off a large number of reporters who were pursuing and blocking him and flew from New York to Chicago.
'Home Alone' had been completed, and although he could have had the sample sent to Los Angeles, Simon still personally flew to Chicago to watch it and, incidentally, to get some peace and quiet.
After watching the 'Home Alone' sample and discussing some detailed modifications with John Hughes, Simon once again shook off the reporters who had come after hearing the news and flew from northern America to New Mexico in the south to visit the set of 'Terminator 2'.
Although many rules had been agreed upon in advance, after 'Terminator 2' officially began filming, Cameron only quieted down for a while at first, but lately, his old habits had resurfaced.
After checking the film's shooting progress, Simon no longer had any hope that Cameron would complete 'Terminator 2' within budget.
Fortunately, having just experienced the failure of 'The Abyss', Cameron had indeed reined himself in somewhat.
According to the producer's private estimate, the project should be completed within $70 millions.
Considering the box office potential of 'Terminator 2', $70 million, although exceeding the budget by $20 million, was actually within Simon's acceptable range.
After finishing his visit to the set of 'Terminator 2', Simon simply went to the set of 'The Fugitive' in North Carolina on the East Coast of the United States.
After touring various parts of the United States in this way, perhaps realizing that the cost of tracking Simon Westeros was simply too high, his surroundings finally quieted down.
On Saturday, September 8th, Simon quietly returned to New York again.
Although Simon himself could not be tracked, news about him did not stop.
During this week, not only Oracle, but also a constant stream of topics in the media about Simon's personal wealth and what he was doing or about to do emerged.
On the day he returned to New York, in addition to the changes in Oracle's board of directors, The Hollywood Reporter on the West Coast suddenly broke the news that Daenerys Entertainment was planning to acquire MCA.
Because it was Saturday, the impact of this news could not be directly reflected in MCA's stock price, but the matter could not be ignored.
Moreover, during this week, media controversies regarding Simon's $21 billion fortune also poured in.
In any case, a 22-year-old young man, through just a few years of accumulation, had far surpassed countless deeply entrenched old-money families.
Even in Western countries, which are very open to private wealth, this matter was truly too astonishing.