Scandalous tech entrepreneur beats Taylor Swift to become youngest self-made female billionaire
AI entrepreneur Lucy Guo, 30, has beaten Taylor Swift as the youngest self-made female billionaire as she battles a shocking child pornography lawsuit against her company.
Guo co-founded Scale AI, a company that provides data to train artificial intelligence, with Alexander Wang in 2016, when the now-billionaires were just 21 and 19, respectively.
Although Guo left the company in 2018 after she was reportedly fired over a 'difference of opinion,' she still owns an estimated 5 percent stake in the company.
Scale AI is now reportedly wrapping up an offer to allow early employees and investors to sell their shares, according to Forbes. The new deal has skyrocketed Guo's net worth from the deal alone to $1.2 billion.
Accounting for her other assets, including her stake in her new company, Passes, Forbes estimates the entrepreneur's total net worth to be $1.25 billion.
Guo's freshly minted billionaire status comes as another company of hers, Passes, was recently put under a microscope for allegedly allowing the production, possession, sale, and distribution of child pornography. Guo and Passes have adamantly denied these claims.
Passes is a subscription-based start-up that allows its more than 100,000 creators to profit from their work, taking home 90 percent of their earnings.
Alice Rosenblum, a woman who claims she used Passes, filed a class action lawsuit against the company in February in the Southern District of Florida, alleging that Guo waived safety controls on her account and allowed her to sell explicit content, knowing she was only 17 years old.
Swift became the youngest female self-made billionaire in 2023 due to her massive Eras Tour and the revenue she made from her music
Rosenblum claimed that she was recruited by someone she alleged was an agent of the company, Alec Celestin, to 'create images and videos of herself engaged in sexually explicit conduct.' Passes has denied that Celestin worked for the company.
She alleged that Celestin recruited her in July 2024 to 'produce, market, sell and distribute child pornography' knowing that she was underage.
Rosenblum claimed that she was invited to Celestin's house to produce the explicit content, and he asked Guo to waive the age requirement so she could post the content on Passes.
The lawsuit names Passes, Guo, and Celestin as co-defendants alongside Lani Ginoza, who was named as Celestin's assistant.
The lawsuit accuses Passes and Guo of knowing that Celestin and Ginoza were allegedly conspiring to market and sell child pornography through the platform's messaging system to those known as 'big spenders' and 'whalers.'
Guo was also accused of false advertising as Passes was branded as a non-explicit alternative to OnlyFans, where creators can post subscription-based content, 'minus the nudity.'
Passes states in their community and content guidelines that explicit adult content, nudity, or pornography is not allowed; however, the lawsuit claims that Guo allegedly asked Celestin to recruit creators to specifically create pornographic content.
The lawsuit also cites a text allegedly sent from Celestin to Rosenblum offering his mansion for her to shoot content in.
After Rosenblum created the content, the lawsuit claims, 'Those images were uploaded to the Passes Vault and later were published on Passes with salacious verbiage in connection with Plaintiff's 18th birthday campaign.'
The filing alleged that Guo specifically told Rosenblum on a phone call that she could 'upload anything.'
Passes allows minors between the ages of 15 and 17 to have accounts with parental consent. Passes and Guo have denied the allegations cited in the lawsuit.
'To set the record straight, a Florida lawsuit was filed only after opposing counsel representing an adult star first demanded millions from the company, which Passes refused to pay,' a spokesperson for the company told the DailyMail.com.
'Passes refutes any claims that it approved or condoned the posting of underage explicit content on its platform.
'Any effort to attribute alleged misconduct of third parties to Passes is baseless and nothing more than an effort to entangle Passes and its founder, Lucy Guo, in the lawsuit. We look forward to presenting the facts in court.'
Guo also has denied the allegations against her and her company, writing in a statement on social media, 'To be clear, these accusations are false and being wielded to undermine the success of the company we have built over the last three years.'
'Lucy Guo and Passes never approved or condoned the posting of underage explicit content on our platform.
'We disapprove of the actions allegedly taken by the plaintiff's talent manager and any attempt to involve us in this matter is baseless, which we intend to prove.'
In a separate statement on X, the tech entrepreneur claimed she 'HAD ZERO interaction with the plaintiff (calls, texts, calendar invites, emails, etc).'
'I do not have any contact information of hers,' she added.
'I do not condone the actions described, and Alec Celestin was not an agent of passes nor was he ever an employee.
'We are confident the facts are on our side and look forward to presenting those facts in court.'
A spokesperson for Passes confirmed to DailyMail.com that Celestin didn't work for the company.
In response to her billionaire status, Guo recently told Forbes in a text message, 'I don't really think about it much, it's a bit wild. Too bad it's all on paper haha.'
Guo is the youngest of six self-made female billionaires, joining the ranks of Swift, 35, Daniela Amodei, 37, Melanie Perkins, 37, Rihanna, 37, and Lu Yiwen, 37.
Perkins is an Australian technology entrepreneur and is the CEO and co-founder of the graphic design company, Canva.
She has the highest net worth of the six women, clocking in at an impressive net worth of $5.7 billion. The rest of the women are worth between $1 and 2 billion, according to Forbes.
Guo started building her fortune as a young woman, dropping out of her computer science program at Carnegie Mellon University to become a Thiel Fellow.
She worked at the question-and-answer firm Quora, where she met her future business partner, Wang. The two founded Scale AI in 2016 before Guo left the company.
Guo founded Passes in 2022 and has a host of celebrity creators, including Olivia Dunne, Shaquille O'Neal and DJ Kygo.
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