Ross Perot Biography: The Entrepreneur Who Ran for President

In 1992, Ross Perot brought a businessman’s arguments about federal deficits, trade and political leadership into a presidential contest between George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He appeared alongside both candidates in televised debates and used extended broadcasts, often with charts, to explain the issues he believed Washington was neglecting.

The independent candidate won approximately 19.7 million votes, or 18.9% of the national popular vote. He won no electoral votes and did not become president. Yet the campaign made a technology entrepreneur a major figure in American political life.

Perot’s route to that campaign had already included the creation of a pioneering computer-services company, a multibillion-dollar sale to General Motors, an acrimonious corporate separation, and the beginning of a second technology business. His public work also reached into veterans’ affairs and Texas school reform. Those chapters show a career that moved repeatedly between private enterprise and public questions, without following a conventional political path.

A Quick Look at the Life of Ross Perot

From Texarkana to the Navy

Ross Perot grew up in Texarkana, Texas, where his father, Gabriel Ross Perot, worked as a cotton broker and horse trader and his mother, Lulu May Perot, worked as a secretary. As a boy he delivered newspapers and sold products including seeds. These early jobs gave him experience with customers and selling long before he entered the computer industry.

Perot later recalled that his father told him to work and save for a bicycle. He also described learning to negotiate through the buying and selling of horse-related equipment.

He became an Eagle Scout, studied at Texarkana Junior College and entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1949. After graduating in 1953, he served as a Navy officer aboard the destroyer USS Sigourney and aircraft carrier USS Leyte. He also held leadership positions while at the academy.

In 1956, Perot married Margot Birmingham. The couple eventually had five children. His Navy service ended in 1957, when he joined IBM in Dallas as a salesman. That new role exposed him directly to the computing needs of large organizations.

The Service Business IBM Did Not Pursue

At IBM, Perot came to believe that customers needed more than computer hardware. Companies also needed people to perform programming, data processing and continuing technical work. He proposed a contracted-services approach within IBM, but the company did not pursue the idea.

When IBM declined his idea, Perot left and founded Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in 1962 with $1,000 from Margot’s savings. Rather than sell computer hardware, the young company contracted to manage parts of its customers’ data-processing operations. That distinction became central to its business.

The early sales effort was difficult. According to a history maintained by Perot’s family, he made 77 calls before EDS won its first customer, Collins Radio. The company secured work with Frito-Lay in 1963 and later expanded into corporate data processing and healthcare-related claims administration.

As EDS took on complex service contracts, it became a major presence in the information-services business. Work processing Medicare and Medicaid claims contributed to its growth. The company went public in 1968, bringing Perot enormous financial wealth and giving the enterprise a different scale from the startup he had launched only six years earlier.

EDS developed a reputation for demanding workplace standards, conservative dress and long hours. It also recruited many military veterans.

Veterans’ Causes and the Employees Held in Iran

Perot’s involvement with military personnel extended beyond hiring. During the Vietnam War, he advocated for American prisoners of war and their families. In December 1969, he arranged an effort to bring supplies and gifts to prisoners in North Vietnam, but North Vietnamese authorities did not admit the mission.

A more direct crisis involving his own employees arose in late 1978. Two EDS staff members, Paul Chiapparone and Bill Gaylord, were imprisoned in Tehran amid a contract dispute and the political upheaval that preceded the Iranian Revolution. Perot financed and organized an effort to help free them and enlisted retired Army officer Arthur “Bull” Simons to assist with planning.

The eventual release did not occur through the dramatic prison assault sometimes associated with the story. During the upheaval of February 1979, a crowd stormed the prison and the two men were freed amid the wider prison break. Members of the effort organized by Perot then helped them escape Iran and reach Turkey.

Although Perot’s team did not breach the prison, his decision to finance and organize the effort became a notable example of his personal involvement in an extraordinary employee crisis.

Perot remained involved with the issue of American hostages. In a January 1980 letter to national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, he described the earlier effort and offered to help organize a separate rescue during the U.S. embassy hostage crisis. The letter documents an offer, not confirmation that a new mission was approved or carried out.

Taking on Texas Public Education

Perot also became involved in Texas public policy without following a conventional political career. In 1979, Governor Bill Clements enlisted him to lead an anti-drug initiative. The committee advocated tougher enforcement measures, some of which became law in 1981.

His most consequential state-level assignment followed in 1983, when Democratic governor Mark White chose Perot to chair the Select Committee on Public Education. The committee proposed changes to academic expectations, teacher-related measures, class sizes and student eligibility for extracurricular activities.

The proposals ran into resistance from groups affected by the changes. Perot pressed for stricter standards, while Governor White, lawmakers and other participants negotiated the legislation. In 1984, Texas adopted House Bill 72, a major package of school reforms.

Among the best-known provisions was “no pass, no play,” which restricted students’ extracurricular participation after failing coursework. The policy became closely associated with Perot, although it was enacted by Texas lawmakers as part of a larger reform package.

The school-reform episode brought a consistent feature of his public arguments into view. Perot wanted institutions to be judged by performance and results. In Texas, that approach had to contend with the complications of public policy, organized opposition and legislative compromise.

The General Motors Deal and a Public Break

Perot’s relationship with General Motors began as a large business opportunity. In 1984, GM acquired EDS in a transaction widely valued at about $2.5 billion. Perot received an interest in GM and joined the automaker’s board, taking the founder of a prominent services company into the leadership structure of a much larger industrial corporation.

The arrangement did not last. Perot became a vocal critic of GM’s leadership, including chairman Roger Smith. Their differences developed into a public dispute over management and corporate direction. Perot favored more direct intervention, while GM operated through its established governance structure.

In December 1986, GM’s board approved a roughly $750 million repurchase of shares held collectively by Perot and three senior EDS associates. Perot lost his GM board seat and his EDS leadership positions.

Perot condemned the buyout as morally wrong while GM was closing plants and cutting jobs. The corporate break ended his leadership of EDS, but he would soon begin building another technology-services company.

Starting Again with Perot Systems

After the GM rupture, Perot pursued new technology ventures. In 1987, he invested $20 million in NeXT, the computer company founded by Steve Jobs, and joined its board.

In 1988, Perot, his son Ross Perot Jr. and associates formed Perot Systems. The new company again concentrated on information services, eventually building substantial work in healthcare and other sectors including insurance and government.

Perot Systems gave him a second major business venture, this time alongside his son and other colleagues. As the company developed, Perot also entered a new arena: national presidential politics.

The Independent Presidential Campaign of 1992

Perot entered the 1992 presidential race as an independent, challenging incumbent president George H. W. Bush and Democratic nominee Bill Clinton. His campaign emphasized the federal deficit and national debt, criticized established political practices and opposed the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement on the grounds that it would threaten American jobs.

Perot used his own wealth, volunteer ballot-access organizers and national television appearances to campaign outside the two-party system. During parts of the spring and early summer, some polls placed him ahead of both major-party candidates.

His campaign then underwent an unusual reversal. Perot withdrew from the race in July and returned in October. During the controversy surrounding his withdrawal, he claimed that operatives connected to Bush’s campaign had plotted to manufacture compromising material and disrupt his daughter’s wedding. The allegations were not substantiated in contemporaneous reporting; Perot acknowledged lacking proof, and Bush officials denied the claims. They cannot be treated as an established explanation for his decision.

Upon his return, Perot participated in the televised presidential debates with Bush and Clinton. His running mate was retired Vice Admiral James Stockdale. Perot also bought extended television time to present detailed arguments and visual aids, including charts that made his fiscal concerns a visible part of the campaign. One of those 1992 campaign charts is preserved in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

During the October debates, Perot warned, “We’re going to go through a period of shared sacrifice.” He also used the phrase “a giant sucking sound” to predict that NAFTA would draw jobs away from the United States. That phrase expressed his campaign position, not an established economic outcome.

The Federal Election Commission’s 1992 summary records about 19.7 million Perot votes, representing 18.91% of the popular vote. He won no electoral votes. It was the strongest presidential popular-vote share for a candidate outside the two major parties since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, but it did not produce a state victory or a route to the presidency.

Whether Perot changed who won the election has remained contested. Some former Bush administration figures later argued that his candidacy helped defeat Bush. A contemporaneous analysis of Perot voters’ second choices suggested Clinton would still have won the Electoral College. That analysis cannot reconstruct all the ways the campaign might have unfolded without Perot, so the claim that he definitively handed Clinton the presidency goes beyond what can be established.

A Reform Party, but a Smaller Second Campaign

Perot remained publicly engaged with trade and federal finances after 1992. In November 1993, he debated Vice President Al Gore on television over NAFTA. He established the Reform Party in 1995, creating a party vehicle for another presidential campaign rather than running as an independent again.

In 1996, Perot ran as the Reform Party nominee with economist Pat Choate. The Commission on Presidential Debates excluded the ticket from its televised presidential debates. Perot and allied challengers went to court, but did not obtain the requested relief. Key rulings addressed jurisdiction and procedure rather than the merits of every claim about the exclusion.

The second campaign drew substantially less support than the first. The Federal Election Commission reports approximately 8.1 million votes, or 8.40% of the national popular vote, with no electoral votes. The drop from 1992 is unmistakable, but it cannot be assigned to debate exclusion or any other single factor alone.

Together, the two campaigns demonstrated both the breadth of Perot’s initial appeal and the difficulty of sustaining a presidential movement outside the major-party system. His independent campaign had produced an exceptional vote share; his later party did not turn that attention into an electoral-college breakthrough.

Later Business Success and Public Commitments

Perot Systems continued growing while its founder’s national political campaigns receded. The company went public in 1999 and developed into a significant global information-services business. Ross Perot Jr. took on greater executive responsibility as his father moved toward an emeritus role.

On September 21, 2009, Dell announced an agreement to acquire Perot Systems for approximately $3.9 billion. The deal closed on November 3 that year. The figure describes the company’s acquisition value, not a personal payment to Ross Perot. It was nevertheless a major endpoint for the second company he had helped build following his split from General Motors.

Perot continued speaking about national finances and launched a debt-awareness website in 2008. His longstanding civic commitments also included veterans’ causes, education and medical institutions.

The Perot Foundation, established by Ross and Margot Perot in 1969, supported a range of educational, medical, cultural and veterans-related causes. UT Southwestern Medical Center reported in 2019 that Perot, his wife and the foundation had collectively given more than $90 million to the institution. That total belongs to the combined contributors, rather than solely to him as an individual donor.

Another highly visible family contribution was the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas. In 2008, the five Perot children gave $50 million toward the museum project in honor of Ross and Margot. Its new facility opened in 2012. The museum’s name reflects that family tribute; the $50 million gift came from the children, not directly from Ross Perot.

Perot died at his home in Dallas on July 9, 2019, at the age of 89. His life had encompassed two major technology ventures, unusually prominent outsider presidential campaigns, public-policy initiatives and philanthropic work involving both him and his family.

The Legacy of an Outsider in Business and Politics

Ross Perot helped make the provision of contracted computer services a major business and built a second company after a highly publicized separation from his first. In public life, he argued for measurable performance in Texas schools and brought deficit and trade questions to millions of presidential voters.

There were limits as well as achievements. He did not win the presidency; his second campaign drew a markedly smaller share of the vote; and some of his most memorable public claims remained allegations or predictions rather than established facts. The enduring significance of his career lies in the combination: an entrepreneur with a major role in the information-services industry who carried his outsider approach into public debates, sometimes with striking reach and sometimes without the result he sought.

Timeline

These milestones trace Ross Perot’s development from Texarkana and the Navy through technology entrepreneurship, politics and later public commitments.

1930

Born on June 27 in Texarkana, Texas.

1949–1953

Enters the U.S. Naval Academy in 1949 and graduates in 1953.

1956–1957

Marries Margot Birmingham in 1956; ends Navy service and joins IBM in Dallas in 1957.

1962

Founds Electronic Data Systems using $1,000 from Margot’s savings.

1968–1969

EDS goes public in 1968. Ross and Margot establish the Perot Foundation in 1969, when he also arranges an unsuccessful mission to bring supplies to U.S. prisoners in North Vietnam.

1978–1979

Two EDS employees are detained in Iran. Perot organizes assistance; they are freed during a February 1979 prison break and helped out of the country.

1983–1984

Chairs Texas’s Select Committee on Public Education. Lawmakers enact House Bill 72, including “no pass, no play,” in 1984.

1984–1986

General Motors acquires EDS in 1984. A dispute with GM leadership culminates in Perot’s departure in December 1986.

1987–1988

Invests in Steve Jobs’s NeXT in 1987 and co-founds Perot Systems with Ross Perot Jr. and associates in 1988.

1992

Runs for president as an independent, withdraws in July and reenters in October. Wins about 18.9% of the popular vote but no electoral votes.

1993

Debates Vice President Al Gore over NAFTA on television.

1995–1996

Forms the Reform Party in 1995. Runs as its presidential nominee with Pat Choate in 1996, winning about 8.4% of the popular vote and no electoral votes.

1999

Perot Systems goes public.

2008

Perot launches a national-debt-awareness website. His five children make a $50 million gift toward the Dallas science museum honoring Ross and Margot.

2009

Dell announces and completes its acquisition of Perot Systems, closing the transaction on November 3.

2012

The new Perot Museum of Nature and Science facility opens in Dallas.

2019

Ross Perot dies in Dallas on July 9, aged 89.

FAQs

Was Ross Perot an independent candidate or a Reform Party candidate?

Both, in different elections. Ross Perot ran as an independent in the 1992 presidential election. He founded the Reform Party in 1995 and ran as its presidential nominee in 1996.

Did Ross Perot win any electoral votes?

No. Perot won no electoral votes in either the 1992 or 1996 presidential election. He nevertheless received approximately 18.9% of the popular vote in 1992 and 8.4% in 1996.

Did Ross Perot cost George H. W. Bush the 1992 election?

That has not been conclusively established. Some Bush administration figures believed Perot’s candidacy damaged Bush, but an analysis of Perot voters’ second choices suggested Clinton would still have won. No analysis can establish exactly how the entire campaign would have unfolded without Perot.

Did Ross Perot’s team storm a prison to free EDS employees in Iran?

No such prison assault is established. Perot funded and organized a rescue effort after two EDS employees were detained in Tehran, but the men were released amid a broader prison break during the February 1979 revolutionary upheaval. The team then helped them escape from Iran.

What did “no pass, no play” have to do with Ross Perot?

It was part of the 1984 Texas school-reform legislation associated with a committee chaired by Perot. The policy restricted certain extracurricular participation for students who failed coursework. Perot advocated reform, but lawmakers and other participants enacted the broader package.

Why did Ross Perot not appear in the 1996 presidential debates?

The Commission on Presidential Debates excluded his Reform Party ticket from the televised presidential debates. Perot challenged the decision, but the legal action did not produce the relief he sought; important rulings concerned jurisdiction and procedure rather than proving every claim about the exclusion.

Did Ross Perot donate $50 million to the Perot Museum?

No. Ross and Margot Perot’s five children donated $50 million toward the Dallas museum project in 2008 to honor their parents. The museum’s new facility opened in 2012.

Interviews

Ross Perot in the First 1992 Presidential Debate

The October 11, 1992 presidential debate puts Perot’s fiscal arguments in his own words alongside responses from George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The University of Virginia Miller Center provides a transcript and audiovisual material. It offers a direct view of how Perot presented himself and his policy priorities to a national audience.

Read or view the debate

Ross Perot on Trade in the October 1992 Debate

The October 19, 1992 presidential debate records Perot’s arguments about NAFTA and the potential loss of American jobs. Readers can see the original context for his widely remembered “giant sucking sound” phrase rather than treating it as a finding about later economic results. The Commission on Presidential Debates publishes the full transcript.

Read the debate transcript

Further Reading

• Ken Follett, On Wings of Eagles — A fictionalized treatment of the EDS employees’ Iran ordeal; useful as a cultural retelling, not as a verified transcript of events or dialogue.
• Smithsonian National Museum of American History: Ross Perot campaign button — A museum collection object documenting the physical material of his presidential campaign.

Sources

• Texas State Historical Association: Perot, Henry Ross
• U.S. Naval Academy: Notable Graduates: H. Ross Perot
• Associated Press (via Navy Times): Ross Perot Dies at 89
• Ross Perot family historical site: Early Life, Entrepreneur Extraordinaire, Iran Hostage Rescue, Policy Reformer, Presidential Candidate, Military/POW Advocate, Interactive Timeline
• The Washington Post: GM Ousts Perot, Buys Back Stock, Charges Revisited Bitterly by Perot, Perot Seen Not Affecting Vote Outcome, Computer Industry Wary of Jobs–Perot Alliance, Perot Chooses Economist for Reform Party Ticket
• Dell / U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: Dell to Acquire Perot Systems, Dell Acquisition Completion Filing
• U.S. Department of State: Letter to Zbigniew Brzezinski (1980)
• Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Governor Mark White and Education Reform
• The Texas Tribune: No Pass, No Play: The Back Story
• Federal Election Commission: Federal Elections 1992, 1996 Popular Vote Summary, Perot and Natural Law Party v. FEC and CPD
• U.S. National Archives: 1992 Electoral College Results, 1996 Electoral College Results
• Smithsonian Institution: Ross Perot 1992 Campaign Visual Aid
• University of Virginia Miller Center: October 11, 1992 Debate, Ross Perot: Election Spoiler or Message Shaper?
• Commission on Presidential Debates: October 19, 1992 Debate
• UT Southwestern Medical Center: In Memoriam: H. Ross Perot Sr.
• Perot Museum of Nature and Science: Mission and History