Financier George Soros, the billionaire investor and liberal donor, has handed over control of his multibillion-dollar foundation to his son, Alexander.
The 92-year-old, who memorably won $1 billion betting against the British pound and “breaking the Bank of England” in a catastrophic financial event in 1992 that became known as Black Wednesday, had previously said that he did not want his open society. Foundations (OSF) that any of his five children will assume.
However, Soros has now appointed his son Alexander as chairman of one of the world’s richest philanthropic foundations. “He’s earned it,” said Soros, whose personal fortune is valued at $6.7 billion.
The 37-year-old, who was quietly appointed in December, said he was “more political” than his father and planned to continue giving family money to left-leaning US political candidates, in an interview with Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
His father has been a major donor to Democratic candidates in American politics.
“We will redouble our defense of voting rights and personal liberty at home and support the cause of democracy abroad,” Alexander said. “As much as I’d like to get money out of politics, as long as the other side is doing it, we’re going to have to do it too.”
Alexander, who earlier this week tweeted a photo of himself posing with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, now runs the political campaign as chairman of his father’s political action committee.
The foundation, of which Alexander has been vice president since 2017, allocates about $1.5 billion a year to groups like those that support human rights and help build democracies.
Alexander, who studied history at New York University and earned a doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, has pursued his own initiatives, including supporting progressive Jewish organizations, environmental causes and workers’ rights in the US.
He also sits on the foundation’s investment committee that oversees Soros Fund Management (OSF), and the vast majority of the $25 billion in assets under management belong to OSF. OSF received $18 billion from its father in 2018.
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“With my background, there are a lot of ways I could have gone wrong,” Alexander said. “Instead, I became a workaholic, and my life is my work.”
George Soros has been married three times and has five children: Alexander, Andrea, Gregory, Robert and Jonathan.
