George Soros

"Soros" redirects here. For other uses, see Soros (disambiguation).

George Soros
HonFBA
Soros in 2018
Born
György Schwartz[1][2]

(1930-08-12) August 12, 1930 (age 94)
Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary
CitizenshipHungary
United States[3]
EducationLondon School of Economics (BSc, MSc)
Occupations
  • Investor
  • hedge fund manager
  • author
  • philanthropist
Known for
Spouses
Annaliese Witschak
​
​
(m. 1960; div. 1983)​
​
​
(m. 1983; div. 2005)​
Tamiko Bolton
​
(m. 2013)​
Children5, including Robert, Jonathan and Alexander
FatherTivadar Soros
RelativesPaul Soros (brother)
Websitewww.georgesoros.com Edit this at Wikidata

George Soros[a] HonFBA (born György Schwartz; August 12, 1930)[1][2] is a Hungarian-American[b] businessman, investor, and philanthropist.[7][8] As of October 2023, he had a net worth of US$6.7 billion,[9][10] having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations,[11] of which $15 billion has already been distributed, representing 64% of his original fortune. In 2020, Forbes called Soros the "most generous giver" (in terms of percentage of net worth).[12] He is a resident of New York.[13]

Born in Budapest to a non-observant Jewish family, Soros survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary and moved to the United Kingdom in 1947. He studied at the London School of Economics and was awarded a BSc in philosophy in 1951, and then a Master of Science degree, also in philosophy, in 1954.[14][15][16] Soros started his career working in British and American merchant banks, before setting up his first hedge fund, Double Eagle, in 1969.[17] Profits from this fund provided the seed money for Soros Fund Management, his second hedge fund, in 1970. Double Eagle was renamed Quantum Fund and was the principal firm Soros advised. At its founding, Quantum Fund had $12 million in assets under management, and as of 2011 it had $25 billion, the majority of Soros's overall net worth.[18]

Soros is known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England" as a result of his short sale of US$10 billion worth of pounds sterling, which made him a profit of $1 billion, during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis.[19] Based on his early studies of philosophy, Soros formulated the General Theory of Reflexivity for capital markets, to provide insights into asset bubbles and fundamental/market value of securities, as well as value discrepancies used for shorting and swapping stocks.[20]

Soros supports progressive and liberal political causes, to which he dispenses donations through the Open Society Foundations.[21] Between 1979 and 2011, he donated more than $11 billion to various philanthropic causes;[22][23] by 2017, his donations "on civil initiatives to reduce poverty and increase transparency, and on scholarships and universities around the world" totaled $12 billion.[24] He influenced the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s,[25] and provided one of Europe's largest higher education endowments to the Central European University in his Hungarian hometown.[26] Soros's extensive funding of political causes has made him a "bugaboo of European nationalists".[27] Numerous far-right theorists have promoted false claims that characterize Soros as a dangerous "puppet master" behind alleged global plots.[28][29][30] Criticisms of Soros, who is of Jewish descent, have often been called antisemitic.[31][32][33] In 2018, The New York Times reported that "conspiracy theories about him have gone mainstream, to nearly every corner of the Republican Party".[28]

  1. ^ a b Chapman, Roger; Ciment, James (March 17, 2015). Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints and Voices. Routledge. p. 617. ISBN 9781317473510. Archived from the original on January 27, 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  2. ^ a b Kaufman, Michael T. (2002). Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire. Knopf. pp. 17–18, 23. ISBN 9780375405853. Archived from the original on January 27, 2017. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  3. ^ "Forbes 400 Richest Americans: George Soros". Forbes. September 2013. Archived from the original on November 22, 2013. Retrieved November 19, 2013.
  4. ^ Authors@Google: George Soros on YouTube
  5. ^ Greenwald, Glenn (October 20, 2010). "George Soros' 'foreign' money". Salon. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  6. ^ Weiss, Gary; Schares, Gail E.; Smith, Geri; Dwyer, Paul; Sandler, Neal; Pennar, Karen (August 22, 1993). "The Man Who Moves Markets". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  7. ^ "The incredible life of billionaire investing legend George Soros". Business Insider. Archived from the original on February 3, 2017. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
  8. ^ Zuckerman, Gregory (June 9, 2016). "A Bearish George Soros Is Trading Again". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
  9. ^ "George Soros". Forbes.com. Archived from the original on March 2, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2021.
  10. ^ "Bloomberg Billionaires". Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on April 16, 2016. Retrieved February 6, 2015. Note that this site is updated daily.
  11. ^ "George Soros". Open Society Foundations. Archived from the original on October 16, 2012. Retrieved December 13, 2018.
  12. ^ Wang, Jennifer. "The New Forbes Philanthropy Score: How We Ranked Each Forbes 400 Billionaire Based On Their Giving". Forbes.
  13. ^ Danielle Letenyie (August 2, 2022). "Where Does Billionaire Philanthropist George Soros Live in 2022?". Market Realist. Retrieved April 1, 2023.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference LSE1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ "Who is billionaire financier George Soros?". BBC News. May 31, 2018. Archived from the original on January 16, 2020. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  16. ^ "These 18 insanely successful people all went to LSE". Business Insider. October 28, 2015. Archived from the original on March 20, 2020. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  17. ^ "George Soros: The man who broke UK's central bank and criticised PM Narendra Modi". The Economic Times. February 17, 2023. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved April 23, 2024.
  18. ^ Ungeheuer, Frederick (May 4, 1987). "George Soros: World's Champion Bull Rider". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Archived from the original on January 29, 2017. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
  19. ^ Ferguson, Niall; Schlefer, Jonathan (September 9, 2009). "Who Broke the Bank of England?". Harvard Business School BGIE Unit Case No. 709-026. SSRN 1485674.
  20. ^ Open Society Foundations (October 11, 2010), George Soros Lecture Series: Financial Markets, archived from the original on January 19, 2017, retrieved February 2, 2017
  21. ^ Shawcross, William (September 1, 1997). "Turning Dollars into Change" Archived May 8, 2010, at the Wayback Machine. Time.
  22. ^ "Philanthropy vs. Tyranny: Inside the Open Society Foundations' Biggest Battle Yet". Inside Philanthropy. August 17, 2017. Archived from the original on December 13, 2019. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
  23. ^ Gershowitz, Martin (October 4, 2013). "George Soros Gets Hitched for Third Time". Jewish Voice. Archived from the original on July 28, 2017. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
  24. ^ "George Soros: Hungarian government posters 'anti-Semitic'". BBC News. July 11, 2017. Archived from the original on July 12, 2017. Retrieved July 11, 2017.
  25. ^ Murphy, Brendan (July 1993). "Finance: The Unifying Theme". The Atlantic. ISSN 1072-7825. Archived from the original on July 15, 2012. Retrieved March 7, 2017.
  26. ^ "Hungary: Soros Donates $250 Million to University in Budapest". IPR Strategic Business Information Database. Info Prod Research. October 16, 2001.
  27. ^ "A veto gives the rule of law in Poland a reprieve". The Economist. July 28, 2017. Archived from the original on July 28, 2017. Retrieved July 28, 2017.
  28. ^ a b Shane, Scott; Vogel, Kenneth P.; Kingsley, Patrick (October 31, 2018). "How Vilification of George Soros Moved From the Fringes to the Mainstream". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 1, 2018. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
  29. ^ Baram, Marcus (October 5, 2018). "Buckle up! Here's a timeline of George Soros conspiracy theories". Fast Company. Archived from the original on October 5, 2018. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  30. ^ Wolraich, Michael (November 14, 2010). "Beck's bizarre, dangerous hit at Soros". CNN. Archived from the original on November 1, 2020. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
  31. ^ Finkelstein, Daniel (February 14, 2018). "George Soros and the roots of antisemitism". The Times. Archived from the original on May 2, 2018. Retrieved May 3, 2018.(subscription required)
  32. ^ Behr, Rafael (February 8, 2018). "A secret plot to stop Brexit, or an antisemitic dog whistle?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 4, 2018. Retrieved May 3, 2018.
  33. ^ Fisher, Lucy (February 8, 2018). "Brexiteers and alt-right unite against 'globalist' billionaire George Soros". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 4, 2018. Retrieved May 3, 2018.


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