Rick Santelli is an American on-air editor for the CNBC Business News Network and he has an estimated net worth of $3 million. He joined CNBC on June 14, 1999 and he appears 12 to 16 times per day reporting on trading from the Chicago Board of Trade. He used to be the vice president of Interest Rate Futures and Options at Drexel Burnham Lambert, an institutional trading and hedge fund account for future-related products. He is also credited as a catalyst in the early formation of the Tea Party movement in a statement he made on February 19, 2009.

Born on January 12, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois, Santelli is of Italian descent. At six, the family moved to Lombard, Illinois. He attended Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, Illinois. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has been a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in market that included gold, lumber, CDs, T-bills, foreign currencies, and livestock.

In 1979, Rick Santelli began trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in markets such as commodities, Certificates of deposit, Treasuries, and currencies. He also worked as a financial trader and executive for Drexel Burnham Lambert. In 1990, he felt that the financial industry was changing so he accepted a full-time job with CNBC in 1999.