Gore 'Romney Rich': Former Vice President's Net Worth Estimated At $200 Million

According to estimates based on company filings, government records, public pronouncements and interviews with sources close to Al Gore's financial holdings, the former vice president has amassed a fortune which may be worth greater than $200 million, writes Bloomberg News. The estimate approaches the $250 million net worth of 2012 presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. The news may come as a surprise to some who associate Gore with his environmental activism, which in 2007 earned him a Nobel Prize.

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After serving as vice president in the Clinton administration, Al Gore lost the presidential election in 2000 to George W. Bush despite having won the popular vote. Upon leaving office in 2001, he was worth about $1.7 million, with assets including pasture rents from a family farm and royalties from a zinc mine - both businesses willed to him by his late father, a Senator. Fourteen years later, Bloomberg reports, Gore made about $100 million in a single month when he sold Current TV, a media network which he co-founded in 2004, to Al Jazeera for $500 million. He was said to have grossed $70 million for his 20 percent stake after debts were paid off; that same month, he sold approximately $30 million in Apple stock options. In 2003, Gore became a member of the company's board. Since then, its stocks have increased about 5,900 percent. He still possesses holdings which total about $45.6 million.

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Bloomberg attributes his financial success in part to dumb luck, pointing to his missteps in green-tech investments, including a solar-module maker which ended up losing tens of millions of dollars. Even Current TV was considered a "fixer-upper" when Al-Jazeera bought it, according to an SNL Kagan cable analyst quoted by Bloomberg. The news organization attributes much of Gore's success to "timing and luck" and his ability to leverage his political and climate-change-related connections as well as his reputation as a figurehead of the technological vanguard.

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Proceeds from Gore's best-selling books on climate change and movie "An Inconvenient Truth", notably, were not factored into estimates of his wealth - all proceeds generated from these sources has gone to climate advocacy. But their success is one of the reasons why he can charge such high public speaking fees, which go for $175,000 per event.

The $250 million net worth attributed to Mitt Romney is according to a September estimate from Bloomberg. Since losing the presidential election, Romney has rejoined the board of directors at Marriot International for the third time, according to the Huffington Post.