Charles Barkley says Michael Jordan’s golden financial tip made him $50M — here’s the big money move and how it holds up today

"We were playing golf and he says, 'Chuck, I was talking to somebody, I want you to quit taking $3 million. Take $1 million and take the other $2 million in stock options,'" Barkley said.

So Barkley called his people, "because Mike has always been a brilliant businessman." Their verdict? "This is risky."

They asked whether he really thought Jordan was going to be that great. Barkley's answer: "Man, I ain't never seen nobody like that dude."

He took the deal. "I ended up probably making another $50 million, to be honest with you," he said.

But the stock that made him rich has been sliding since 2021. Nike shares are down roughly 79% from their record close, and on Sept. 21 the company was dropped from the S&P 100.

Why Jordan's pitch worked

Options only pay off if the stock climbs past the strike price, and they can expire worthless, which is why Barkley's team called it risky.

Nike's stock climbed anyway. Along the way, the company split its shares 2-for-1 seven times, most recently in December 2015. A single share bought in the early 1990s, after the October 1990 split, has since become 32 shares.

"I actually made probably 10 times the amount of money because it split," Barkley said in 2023. He also recalled getting the options at $35.

If his memory is right and he held on, each share he got at $35 would be worth about $1,190 at Nike's Oct. 23 close of $37.30, even after the slide.

It was still a concentrated bet. Barkley doubled down on the company that was already writing his checks, based on one friend's tip about one athlete. "People buy shoes because of Michael freaking Jordan," Barkley said on the show. "That's it."

The music stopped for Nike

Barkley got in early, well before Nike's decades-long climb. Investors who bought near the top have had a very different ride.

Nike stock hit a record close of $177.51 on Nov. 5, 2021. On Oct. 23, 2026, it closed at $37.30, roughly 79% lower. A $10,000 investment made at that peak would be worth about $2,100 today, before dividends.

At that price, Nike's roughly 1.48 billion shares add up to about $55 billion in market value.

On Sept. 4, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced it would remove Nike from the S&P 100, its index of the largest U.S. companies, effective Sept. 21. Dell Technologies, Palo Alto Networks, Arista Networks and Sandisk joined the index in the same rebalance. Nike is still in the S&P 500, but it lost an S&P 100 spot it had held for nearly 18 years.

Wall Street is split on what comes next. On Oct. 22, Barclays raised its Nike price target to $45 from $37 after meeting with management, calling the shares "near bottom." Wolfe Research went the other way, starting coverage with an Underperform rating and a $28 target. Nike plans to lay out its longer-term strategy at an investor day on Nov. 16-17.

Barkley's windfall still stands. But it rested on one company growing for 30 years, and nobody can promise that about any single stock, including the one you work for.

Don't let one stock carry your whole portfolio

His windfall came from the company that was paying him, which is how a lot of concentrated positions get built.

In workplace 401(k)s, the problem has gotten rare. Just 2% of participants in Vanguard-administered plans hold more than 20% of their balance in company stock, according to Vanguard's How America Saves 2026 report.

The risk now tends to come in through equity pay, like stock options and restricted stock. T. Rowe Price planners Roger Young and Martin Allenbaugh say a single stock that makes up 5% to 10% of your portfolio merits attention, while anything above 10% typically calls for more immediate planning.

Unwinding a big position in one stock can trigger capital gains taxes, so it's worth building a tax-aware selling plan with a financial professional, sometimes spread over several years.

Index funds aren't automatically immune, either. As of May 30, Amazon made up 42% of the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Index, the same sector Nike sits in.