Tony Xu

Xu was born in Nanjing, China. In 1989, his parents immigrated to Champaign, Illinois. His mother, Julie Cao, was a Chinese doctor who later opened acupuncture and medical clinics in Champaign and the San Francisco Bay Area. His father was a professor in China who studied aerospace engineering and applied mathematics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he earned his Ph.D.

Xu began working at an early age, at times washing dishes at the same restaurant where his mother worked. He legally changed his name from Xu Xun to Tony Xu, inspired by his favorite television series, Who's the Boss?, in which Tony Danza plays Tony Micelli. Xu earned his Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering and operations research from the UC Berkeley College of Engineering and his Master of Business Administration degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2013.

Early in his career, Xu interned at the financial services and digital payments company Square, Inc. and completed business development work for the e-commerce app RedLaser. He also worked as a business analyst for the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and as a corporate strategy consultant for eBay and PayPal.

Xu co-founded the delivery platform DoorDash in 2013 with Stanford classmates Andy Fang, Evan Moore, and Stanley Tang; the group had previously worked together to launch the predecessor delivery service PaloAltoDelivery.com in 2012. Xu has said his immigrant parents, and especially his mother's restaurant work, helped inspire DoorDash. Initially, he and other DoorDash employees completed food deliveries. Xu continues to be CEO, and owns an approximately five percent stake in the company. DoorDash's initial public offering in 2020, which Xu has been credited for leading, made him a billionaire at the age of 36. He has voting authority over all Class B shares, giving him control of DoorDash with 69 percent of the voting interest, as of December 2020.

In 2020, Xu was included in Fortune's "40 Under 40" list. In 2022, he became an angel investor in the Gigs startup. In 2026, he was listed under Forbes "Self-Made 250: The Greatest Living Self-Made Americans".

Xu lives in San Francisco. He and his wife Patti met at church while they were undergraduates at Berkeley and married in 2013; the couple have two children.

Xu enjoys running and used to participate in marathons. He has described himself as an "avid" Golden State Warriors and basketball fan, and has credited the sport and television for helping him learn English.

Signatories to the Giving Pledge, he and his wife Patti have made significant donations in support of Berkeley, Northwestern, and the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.