Background and career
Julián Castro ( HOO-lee-AHN, Spanish: [xuˈljan]; born September 16, 1974) is an American lawyer and politician from San Antonio, Texas. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the youngest member of President Obama's cabinet, serving as the 16th United States secretary of housing and urban development from 2014 to 2017. Castro served as the mayor of his native San Antonio, Texas from 2009 until he joined Barack Obama's cabinet in 2014. Castro was mentioned as a possible running mate for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. He is the twin brother of Congressman Joaquin Castro. On January 12, 2019, Castro launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2020 in San Antonio. He dropped out of the presidential race on January 2, 2020, endorsing the candidacy of Elizabeth Warren soon after.
Castro was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Maria "Rosie" Castro and Jessie Guzman. He is the identical twin brother of current United States Representative Joaquin Castro; Julián was born a minute before Joaquin; they were born at 2:40 and 2:41 am, respectively. Castro is of Mexican descent. His mother is a Chicana political activist who helped establish the Chicano political party La Raza Unida, and who ran for the San Antonio City Council in 1971. Castro once stated, "My mother is probably the biggest reason that my brother and I are in public service. Growing up, she would take us to a lot of rallies and organizational meetings and other things that are very boring for an 8-, 9-, 10-year-old". His father, Jessie Guzman, is a retired mathematics teacher and political activist. Never married, Rosie and Jessie separated when Castro and his brother were eight years old. Castro's Texan roots trace back to 1920, when his grandmother Victoria Castro joined extended family members there as a six-year-old orphan from northern Mexico.
Castro attended Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio, where he played football, basketball and tennis; he also collected trading cards. He skipped his sophomore year and graduated in 1992, ranking ninth in his class. He had received an offer to play tennis at Trinity University, an NCAA Division III school in his hometown, but chose to attend Stanford University, along with his twin brother Joaquin. Castro graduated from Stanford in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in political science and communications. He said he began thinking about entering politics while at Stanford, where he and his brother launched their first campaigns and won student senate seats, tying for the highest number of votes. Castro has credited affirmative action for his admission into Stanford, telling The New York Times, "Joaquin and I got into Stanford because of affirmative action. I scored 1210 on my SATs, which was lower than the median matriculating student. But I did fine in college and in law school. So did Joaquin. I'm a strong supporter of affirmative action because I've seen it work in my own life". Between his sophomore and junior years, Castro worked as an intern at the White House during the presidency of Bill Clinton. Castro entered Harvard Law School in 1997 and graduated with a Juris Doctor in 2000. His brother graduated from both schools with him. After law school, the two brothers worked for the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld before starting their own firm in 2005. In 2018, Castro was named as the Dean's Distinguished Fellow and Fellow of the Dávila Chair in International Trade Policy at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.
In 2001, Castro was elected to the San Antonio City Council, winning 61 percent of the vote against five challengers. At age 26 he was the youngest city councilman in San Antonio history, surpassing Henry Cisneros, who won his council seat in 1975 at age 27. Castro represented District 7, a precinct on the city's west side with 115,000 residents. The population was 70 percent Hispanic and included a large number of senior citizens. As a councilman from 2001 to 2005, he opposed a PGA-approved golf course and large-scale real estate development on the city's outer rim.
Castro ran for mayor of San Antonio in 2005 and was widely viewed as the front runner in a field that also included retired judge Phil Hardberger and conservative city councilman Carroll Schubert. He was defeated by approximately 4000 votes when Hardberger received 51.5% of the votes in the runoff. Following his election defeat, Castro established his own law practice. Castro ran for mayor of San Antonio again in 2009. Castro hired Christian Archer, who had run Hardberger's campaign in 2005, to run his own 2009 campaign. Castro won the election on May 9, 2009, with 56.23% of the vote, his closest opponent being Trish DeBerry-Mejia. He became the fifth Latino mayor in the history of San Antonio. He was the youngest mayor of a top-50 American city. Castro easily won re-election in 2011 and 2013, receiving 82.9% of the vote in 2011 and 67% of the vote in 2013. In 2010, Castro created SA2020, a community-wide visioning effort. It generated a list of goals created by the people of San Antonio based on their collective vision for San Antonio in the year 2020. SA2020 then became a nonprofit organization tasked with turning that vision into a reality. Castro also established Cafe College in 2010, offering college guidance to San Antonio-area students. In 2012 he led a voter referendum to expand pre-kindergarten education. Castro persuaded two of the most prominent businessmen in San Antonio, Charles Butt and Joe Robles, to lead an effort to pass a $30 million sales tax to fund the pre-kindergarten education program. In March 2010, Castro was named to the World Economic Forum's list of Young Global Leaders. Later that year, Time magazine placed him on its "40 under 40" list of rising stars in American politics. Castro gained national attention in 2012 when he was the first Hispanic to deliver the keynote address at a Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Following the 2012 elections, Castro declined the position of United States Secretary of Transportation, partly with an eye on running for governor of Texas after 2017. However, in 2014, Castro accepted President Barack Obama's offer of the position of United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Castro resigned as mayor effective July 22, 2014, so that he could take up his duties in Washington. The San Antonio City Council elected councilmember Ivy Taylor to replace him.
On May 22, 2014, the White House announced Castro as the nominee to be the next secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by President Barack Obama. He was confirmed by the Senate on July 9, 2014, by a vote of 71-26 and replaced Shaun Donovan, who was nominated to be the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He took office on July 28, 2014. Following the announcement, Castro was discussed as a potential nominee for vice president for the Democratic Party in the 2016 presidential election.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
