Billionaire businessman James Crown died Sunday in a racing accident.
The 70-year-old executive held roles at several firms, including on the board of JPMorgan Chase and as the head of family business Henry Crown and company. He died on his birthday, after crashing into a barrier at Aspen Motorsports Park in Woody Creek, Colorado.
“The Crown family is deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Jim Crown,” the family said in a statement. “The family requests that their privacy be respected at this difficult time.”
At the moment, the official cause of death is still pending, according to the Pitkin County Coroner’s Office. In a release, the office did mention blunt force trauma was evident in multiple locations.
Though he lived in Chicago, Crown traveled to Colorado frequently and engaged in business in both states. Eventually, his family’s wealth would grow to an estimated $10.2 billion, according to Forbes. He is survived by his parents, his wife and four children.
President Joe Biden wrote that, “Jim lived a great Chicago story – one that tied our ation’s industrious past to an ever-hopeful future. He grew up the great-grandson of a sweatshop worker whose son turned a construction-supply company into an empire.”
Crown attended the White House State dinner last week. In 2014, former president Barack Obama appointed him to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
