On the Get Rich Education podcast this summer he put it bluntly: “So, I’m a billion two in debt.” He immediately added that people “should not do what I do,” then circled back to his long-running message: if you use debt, get educated first.
He has been studying that game, he said, since 1974.
For the SilverTrade audience, the story is less about celebrity gossip and more about the difference between levered paper claims and assets that do not owe anyone a coupon. The $1.2 billion is mostly partnership real estate.Kiyosaki’s former wife and longtime business partner, Kim Kiyosaki, told Vanity Fair that the figure has been widely misunderstood.
It is not a personal IOU sitting on Robert’s kitchen table.
- Buy income-producing real estate.
- As values rise, borrow against the extra equity.
- Treat those loan proceeds as tax-free cash because the property was not sold.
- Put deals in separate LLCs so one failure does not take down the rest.
Kiyosaki’s own line to the magazine was characteristically sharp:
“If it all comes to hell, you can talk to my attorney. Firewalls – that’s the way the rich play the game.”
Kim said he “loves to say things that shock,” then uses the shock to explain why he thinks investment debt is good.
Experts split on whether this is genius or a chainsaw
The Post quoted two camps.
David A. Perez, an enrolled agent and multifamily investor, called it a “great strategy” and said large property-backed debt is “actually very normal.”
Borrowing against equity is not a taxable sale. The tradeoff is higher payments, more interest, and thinner cash flow.
John Poole of JPTD Partners was less impressed by the headline number.
“I think there’s good debt and there’s bad debt, and then there’s $1.2 billion of debt, which you better know exactly what in the world you’re doing.”
Leverage, he said, “works beautifully on the way up.” If prices stop rising, “it’s like a chainsaw financially coming down.” His punchline for retail copycats:
“[Kiyosaki] may call this the ‘Rich Dad debt,’ but for the average investor, it could turn out to be ‘Poor Dad bankruptcy’ really quickly.”
That warning is the part silver and gold holders should not skip.
Why this matters to precious metals investors
Kiyosaki has spent years telling followers to own gold, silver, and Bitcoin as protection against a broken monetary system. He also tells them the rich use other people’s money.
Those two ideas can live in the same speech. They do not live in the same risk bucket.
Apartment debt is a claim against cash flow and appraisals. When rates stay high, insurance spikes, or rents stall, the lender still gets paid first. Gold and silver in your own name do not send a monthly bill. They also do not give you a $1.2 billion talking point.
Rich Dad Poor Dad, first self-published in 1997, has sold more than 44 million copies, according to Vanity Fair. That reach is why the $1.2 billion figure travels. It is marketing, philosophy, and a real estate structure all at once.
The Post said it sought comment from Kiyosaki.
The takeaway
Kiyosaki did not “lose” $1.2 billion in the sense of a trading blowup. He is advertising a leveraged real estate stack, most of it held with partners, and using the shock value to sell a lesson about good debt versus bad debt.
The lesson cuts both ways. Leverage can build equity on the way up. It can erase equity when the cycle turns. Physical metals sit outside that game. That is not a knock on apartments.
It is a reminder of why so many of Kiyosaki’s own followers still stack silver: it does not need a firewall, an attorney, or a $1.2 billion headline to stay solvent.
PHYSICAL gold and silver, held in YOUR OWN POSSESSION, are the ONLY assets that are not also someone else’s liability!
