R obert L. Johnson is a groundbreaking American media entrepreneur who is the founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET). He is widely recognized as the first African American billionaire. In 1980, he founded BET as a cable television channel dedicated to providing programming for an African American audience, a market that was largely overlooked by mainstream media at the time. The channel became a massive cultural and commercial success, and a major force in the television industry.

In 2001, he sold BET to the media giant Viacom for approximately $3 billion, a deal that made him the first Black billionaire in the United States. Since the sale, he has focused on his private investment firm, The RLJ Companies, which has a diversified portfolio of investments in a wide range of industries, including hotels, financial services, and automotive dealerships. He was also the first Black majority owner of a major American professional sports team, the Charlotte Bobcats of the NBA (now the Charlotte Hornets), which he later sold to Michael Jordan.