Which billionaire is the founder of the Virgin Group?

Richard Branson is the billionaire founder most closely identified with the Virgin Group. He co-founded the group with Nik Powell in 1970, beginning with a mail-order record business.

Branson’s first entrepreneurial venture was Student magazine, launched when he was 16. His record business soon expanded into a physical shop and then Virgin Records, which released Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells in 1973. The label’s success gave Branson the platform to extend the Virgin name into airlines, rail transport, telecommunications, hotels and spaceflight.

Virgin Atlantic began operating in 1984, while Virgin Galactic was founded in 2004 as a space-tourism venture. Branson’s strategy was not to build one conventional corporation, but to license and apply the Virgin brand across businesses with different partners and ownership structures.

Strictly speaking, Nik Powell was a co-founder of the original Virgin enterprise, so Branson was not the only person involved at the beginning. However, the question asks for the billionaire founder associated with the Virgin Group, and Richard Branson is the single canonical answer.