Bernard Ebbers

Bernard John Ebbers (August 27, 1941 – February 2, 2020) was a Canadian-American businessman and the co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of WorldCom. Under his management, WorldCom grew rapidly but collapsed in 2002 amid revelations of accounting irregularities, making it at the time one of the largest accounting scandals in the United States. Ebbers blamed his subordinates but was convicted of fraud and conspiracy. In December 2019, Ebbers was released from Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth, due to declining health, having served 13 years of his 25-year sentence, and he died just over a month later.

In 2009, Condé Nast Portfolio and Time named Ebbers among the worst CEOs in business history.

Dubbed the "Telecom Cowboy," Ebbers often wore boots and blue jeans instead of the typical corporate uniform of a suit and tie. He also lived on a farm and loved to drive a tractor.

Ebbers was born in Edmonton, Alberta, the second of five children of Kathleen and John Ebbers, a traveling salesman. His family were devout Christians.

When Ebbers was young, the family moved to California and later lived for a while on a mission post on a Navajo Nation Indian reservation in New Mexico before moving back to Canada when Ebbers was a teenager.

After high school, Ebbers briefly attended the University of Alberta and Calvin College before enrolling at Mississippi College on a basketball scholarship. Between schools, he worked as a milkman and bouncer. An injury before his senior season prevented him from playing his final year and he was instead assigned to coach the junior varsity team. In 1967, he received a Bachelor's degree in physical education, with an academic minor in secondary education, from Mississippi College.

Ebbers began his business career operating a chain of motels in Mississippi.

In 1983, following a meeting at a coffee shop in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Murray Waldron wrote a business plan for selling low-cost, long-distance phone service on a napkin. Ebbers and a group of investors raised $650,000 to form Long Distance Discount Services, Inc. In 1985, he was named CEO. The company acquired over 60 telecommunications firms and in 1995, it changed its name to WorldCom.

In 1996, WorldCom acquired MFS Communications (originally Metropolitan Fiber Systems) and in July 1998, it acquired MCI Communications. In July 2000, it abandoned its planned $115 billion acquisition of Sprint Corporation after U.S. and European Union antitrust regulators raised objections.

Between September 2000 and April 2002, the board of directors of Worldcom authorized several loans and loan guarantees to Ebbers so that he would not have to sell his Worldcom shares to meet margin calls as the share price plummeted during the bursting of the dot-com bubble. By April 2002, Ebbers had lost substantial support on the board due to these loans. Additionally, a number of directors believed Ebbers had not charted a way forward after the Sprint merger collapsed. On April 26, Worldcom's board voted unanimously to demand that Ebbers resign, which he formally did on April 30, 2002. As part of his departure, his loans were consolidated into a single $408.2 million promissory note. In 2003, Ebbers defaulted on the note and Worldcom foreclosed on many of his assets.

Mississippi Business Hall of Fame (May 1995)

In 1968, Ebbers married Linda Pigott and the couple raised three daughters. Ebbers filed for divorce in July 1997 and married his second wife, Kristie Webb, in the spring of 1999. She filed for divorce on April 16, 2008, approximately a year and half after he entered prison.

At his peak in early 1999, Ebbers was worth an estimated $1.4 billion and listed as 174th on the Forbes 400. His personal holdings included: