Ross Perot Jr. used meaningful family backing from his billionaire father to start a real-estate career, then built Hillwood and AllianceTexas into a large industrial, logistics and residential development platform. [1][2][3]
Family wealth gave him an unusually strong starting position
Perot grew up as the son of EDS founder Ross Perot Sr., giving him access to a family fortune and an entrepreneurial education that most founders do not have. Forbes says his father allowed him to borrow against that fortune when he began building his own real-estate business. [1]
Hillwood's history records that Perot Jr. acquired roughly 13,000 acres north of Fort Worth in 1985 for what became AllianceTexas. The scale of that first land position makes the family-capital advantage economically important even though the later development required decades of execution. [2][1]
The project moved beyond raw land when federal and local partners created Fort Worth Alliance Airport, which opened in 1989. Hillwood then expanded the surrounding area into a master-planned logistics, industrial and residential district rather than simply holding inherited assets. [2][3]
Hillwood created substantial value beyond the original family backing
Hillwood says AllianceTexas now spans tens of thousands of acres and houses hundreds of companies, while Forbes credits the company with developing or acquiring hundreds of millions of square feet of industrial property and dozens of residential communities. [3][1]
Perot Jr. therefore did considerably more than preserve a transferred family asset: he built a large operating real-estate platform around land, infrastructure and long-term development. At the same time, his father's fortune materially financed the starting point, so the wealth path combines inherited capital advantage with substantial self-created scale. [1][2][3]
Sources for background
Sources reviewed Oct 7, 2026.
- H. Ross Perot, Jr. · Forbes · Mar 10, 2026
- Company History · Hillwood
- Leadership - Ross Perot Jr. · Hillwood
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