David Choe

David Choe is the graffiti-artist-turned-multimillionaire who bet a Facebook mural gig on stock instead of cash, and won spectacularly.

By Alexandre Le Hégarat · datastats · Updated June 15, 2026

David Choe is a Los Angeles-born Korean-American street artist, muralist, and multimedia provocateur whose raw, visceral style sits somewhere between expressionism, graffiti, and outsider art. He came up in the late 1990s tagging trains and walls across the US and Japan, building a cult following before the art world fully knew what to do with him.

His name exploded into mainstream consciousness when it emerged that he had painted the murals at Facebook’s original Palo Alto headquarters in 2005 and accepted stock in lieu of a cash fee. When Facebook went public in 2012, that decision reportedly turned into a payout estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, one of the most celebrated gambles in Silicon Valley lore.

Beyond the Facebook windfall, Choe has exhibited internationally, collaborated with brands and musicians, and hosted the travel-and-culture series DVDASA and later appeared in other media projects. His work commands serious prices at auction and through private sales, though the market is thin and public sale records are limited.

Choe is also a polarizing figure. A 2014 podcast episode in which he described a sexual encounter in graphic terms triggered widespread backlash and accusations of sexual assault; he later said the story was fabricated as “shock-value storytelling,” but the controversy permanently colors his public profile. He is, in short, one of the most fascinating and complicated figures in contemporary American art.

People search for Choe constantly, curious about his net worth, his face, his Facebook payday, his personal life, and his cameo culture. He sits at the rare intersection of street art, tech wealth, and tabloid intrigue.

People also ask

Choe has been publicly associated with Los Angeles for most of his life, it's where he grew up and where he has maintained his studio and base of operations. He has not publicly disclosed a specific current address, and pinning him to one location is tricky given his history of extended travel.

David Choe is American. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, to Korean immigrant parents, making him Korean-American by heritage and a US citizen by birth.

David Choe was born on April 21, 1976, which makes him 49 years old as of 2025. He has been publicly open about his birth year in interviews and biographical profiles.

Choe's exact height is not a matter of reliable public record. No widely cited, verified source pins down a specific figure, so any number floating around online should be treated as unconfirmed fan speculation rather than fact.

Choe does not have a vast public auction history, so pinpointing a single "most expensive" verified sale is difficult. His large-scale murals and canvases have reportedly sold privately for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but because many transactions are private, no definitive public record exists of his single highest-grossing work.

As of the most recent major auction records, Leonardo da Vinci's *Salvator Mundi* holds the title, having sold at Christie's in November 2017 for $450.3 million, a number that still hasn't been touched at public auction. Note this is entirely unrelated to David Choe's work.

The most significant controversy surrounding Choe was a 2014 episode of his podcast *DVDASA* in which he graphically described what many listeners interpreted as a sexual assault. He later claimed it was a fabricated, shock-value story, but critics and many in the art world were unconvinced, and the fallout damaged his reputation substantially. More recently, he has remained active as an artist and has appeared in various media projects, including the Netflix series *Beef*.

Reliable, verified figures for Choe's current net worth do not exist in public financial disclosures. Celebrity net worth sites frequently cite figures around $200–$300 million, largely extrapolated from his Facebook stock payout, but those are estimates, not confirmed figures. Treat any specific number as an educated guess unless Choe or a verified financial authority publishes the actual data.

When Facebook went public in May 2012, Choe's stock, received as payment for painting murals at Facebook's first headquarters around 2005, was widely reported to be worth approximately $200 million at IPO valuation. The exact final figure he received depends on when and how much stock he sold, which he has never publicly confirmed in full detail, but the rough $200 million figure is the most consistently reported estimate.

"Who" aside, David Choe's net worth is unconfirmed by any authoritative public source. Estimates based on his Facebook windfall and art career typically land in the $200–$300 million range, but these are third-party estimates, not verified disclosures from Choe himself.

No one outside Choe's inner circle knows the precise answer. The widely circulated estimate is that his Facebook stock alone was worth roughly $200 million at the time of the IPO, with additional income from art sales and media work. His actual current liquid wealth is private and unconfirmed.

Unverified estimates place it in the $200–$300 million range, almost entirely driven by his Facebook stock windfall from 2012. No public financial filing or confirmed statement from Choe pins down the number, so treat any figure you see as a back-of-the-envelope calculation, not a fact.

David Choe has a notably reddish, flushed complexion that is visible in photos and video appearances. He has spoken openly about a condition called rosacea, a chronic skin condition that causes redness and visible blood vessels, primarily on the face. It is a medical condition, not the result of an injury or incident.

David Choe has been a notoriously private person regarding his romantic life, and no verified, publicly confirmed marriage or long-term partner has been widely reported in credible media. Naming anyone as his wife without a confirmed public record would be speculation.

There is no publicly confirmed, widely reported information about Choe being married. He has kept his personal relationships largely out of the spotlight, and no credible source has documented a marriage on the record.

Not as far as any credible public record shows. Choe has never publicly announced a marriage, and no verified reporting confirms a spouse. His private life remains genuinely private on this front.

Sort of, this needs clarification. David Choe appeared in Netflix's *Beef* Season 1 (2023), playing the character Isaac Cho, not Season 2. As for a potential Season 2, no confirmed casting announcements for Choe have been publicly verified at the time of writing, so check current Netflix sources for the latest.

Choe has publicly attributed the redness of his face to rosacea, a common, chronic skin condition that causes persistent facial flushing and redness. It is a dermatological condition that affects millions of people and has nothing to do with injury or lifestyle, though it can be aggravated by certain triggers like heat, stress, or alcohol.

Choe's work has no deep public auction history to benchmark against, but his pieces have reportedly sold privately for anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on scale, medium, and provenance. His post-Facebook fame dramatically raised perceived value, though thin market liquidity means prices are highly negotiable and inconsistent.

Thomas Gainsborough's *The Blue Boy* (c. 1770) was sold by the Huntington Library in California to the National Gallery in London in 2021 for a reported £7.5 million (roughly $9.5 million at the time), a figure that surprised many experts who expected more. It is now on permanent public display in London and not on the market, though its cultural and historical value far exceeds any sale price. This painting has no connection to David Choe.