Racing at an Aspen, Colorado, racetrack on his 70th birthday Sunday, billionaire James Crown was killed when he crashed into an impact barrier. "He was driving a race car, and it hit a wall going around a curve," his father, billionaire financier Lester Crown, tells the Chicago Sun-Times. The accident is under investigation, as is James Crown's official cause of death, though authorities noted "multiple blunt force trauma is evident," the Colorado Sun reports. Crown was the grandson of industrialist Henry Crown and acted as the chairman and chief executive officer of the family business, Henry Crown & Co. in Chicago, as well as the managing partner of Aspen Skiing Co. in Colorado, where he spent a lot of time. He was also chairman emeritus of the board that oversees the Aspen Institute, which was hosting a festival in the city, and was at Aspen Motorsports Park in Woody Creek, Colorado, when he died.
"He was the leader of our family both intellectually and emotionally, and he looked out for everybody," Lester Crown says. "He also was a great leader also for the community." He had recently announced a plan to come together with other Chicago CEOs to launch a huge jobs program aimed at addressing violence in the city by employing young men from high-crime neighborhoods. Crown had also acted as director of General Dynamics and JPMorgan Chase & Co. and was a longtime member of the Obamas' inner circle; Forbes ranked his family America's 34th-richest in 2020. "Jim represented America at its best—industrious, bighearted and always looking out for each other," President Biden said in a statement. (More Colorado stories.)
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