'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' author says he's in $1 billion debt: 'If I go bust, bank goes bust'

Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" released in 1997 and has sold over 40 million copies.

Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the best seller "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" has said he is in a debt of $1.2 billion, but admitted that if he went bust, then the bank would also land in trouble. "If I go bust, the bank goes bust. Not my problem," Kiyosaki said in an Instagram Reel on November 30.

In the reel, Kiyosaki also said he was skeptical about saving cash, referencing the U.S dollar's detachment from the gold standard under President Richard Nixon in 1971.

Elaborating further on the reason behind the debt, Kiyosaki said that the money had been used to buy assets. Instead of saving cash, Kiyosaki saved gold and converted his earnings into gold and silver. This strategy, according to him, led to the accumulation of such a large debt.

"I don’t own any copper. I own a lot of silver. I found a silver mine in Argentina and Yamana Gold (Canadian mining company) bought it from me. I do own tons of gold and silver," Kiyosaki had said in an interview with Stockpulse at  Vancouver Resource Investment Conference in 2022.

"I got my start as a startup at the VRIC 25 years ago. I will be there. I invite you to join me at the VRIC, be part of the coming boom in the investment world, resources," Kiyosaki said.

Later, on the "Disruptors" podcast Kiyosaki again admitted to have been in debt of a billion dollars. "I’m a billion dollars in debt because debt is money," he said in the podcast.

Kiyosaki has differentiated debt into good debt and bad debt and the former, according to him, helped generate wealth such as loans used to acquire income and in turn, assets such as businesses and real estate.

He also advocated using debt as leverage in investments, especially in real estate, and saw it as an efficient way to tackle market fluctuations.

Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" released in 1997 and has sold over 40 million copies. In the book, Kiyosaki disputed the notion that earning big was the only route to wealth generation and vouched for the advantages of calculated risk taking and entrepreneurship.