Gordon Peter Getty (born December 20, 1933) is an American businessman and classical music composer as well as a scion of the wealthy Getty family. Gordon was the fourth child of the oil tycoon, J. Paul Getty. His mother, Ann Rork, was J. Paul's fourth wife. When his father died in 1976, Gordon assumed control of Getty's $2billion trust. In March 2026, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his wealth as $8.15 billion and placed him at number 463 on their list of billionaires worldwide, while the Forbes 400 estimated it at $5.5 billion, making him number 276 on their list of the wealthiest Americans.
Getty joined the oil business to please his father; however, he eventually sold the family's Getty Oil to Texaco in 1986 for about $10billion.
In 2002, Getty founded ReFlow, a company which temporarily purchases shares in mutual funds to save funds taxes and commissions.
Classical music
Among several professions, Getty is a classical music composer whose compositions include the opera Plump Jack, Joan and the Bells, piano pieces, and a collection of choral works. His one-act opera Usher House was performed by the San Francisco Opera in 2015. His opera The Canterville Ghost was premiered on May 9, 2015, at the Leipzig Opera.
On Christmas Day, 1964, he married Ann Gilbert (1941–2020) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Gordon and Ann Getty lived in a yellow Italianate mansion in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, with sweeping views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Over the years, Getty and Ann, a publisher and a decorator, expanded their living space, buying the house next door (to make room for his work at the piano) and then the house next door to that. They hosted charity events, opera stars, and fundraisers for politicians, including Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom's father, William Newsom, one of Gordon's friends since high school, managed the family trust for years.
Gordon and Ann Getty had four sons: Gordon Peter Getty Jr (born 1965); William Paul Getty (born 1970); Andrew Rork Getty (1967–2015); John Gilbert Getty (1968–2020).
Getty's assets are managed by Vallejo Investments. Vallejo Investments is what's known as a "family office," an in-house financial team of specialized attorneys, accountants, and money managers.
Getty has a second family based in Los Angeles, including three daughters, with his former longtime mistress Cynthia Beck.
His donations to University of San Francisco helped build the Koret Health & Recreation Center, John Lo Schiavo, S.J. Center for Science & Innovation, and helped establish the J. Paul Getty Honors College Fund.
In documents released in 2026, emails indicated that biologist Robert Trivers introduced Getty to Jeffrey Epstein in 2013 and that Getty and Epstein subsequently corresponded and met. In a 2018 email to Epstein, Trivers attributed to Getty a comment comparing publicity surrounding Getty’s extramarital family with Epstein’s own legal scandal. The available correspondence continued through 2019, although the extent of their direct contact is unclear.
In popular culture
Getty's life as a composer was chronicled in Peter Rosen's documentary Gordon Getty: There Will be Music, which premiered on February 5, 2016, at Cinema Village in New York City. It has been broadcast on PBS in the U.S. and Europe on ARTE, as well as film festivals and programs across the country.
Honors and awards
1986 – Outstanding American Composer, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
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