Finance

George Soros: how the former hedge-fund manager built his $7.2 billion fortune, became subject of international conspiracy theories

Taylor Nicole Rogers and Theron Mohamed

Updated

2024-03-29T11:21:35Z

George Soros ranks in the world's 400 richest people with a $7.2 billion net worth, per Bloomberg.
The famed philanthropist has given away over $32 billion, according to his personal website.
He has purchased a sprawling network of homes in the New York area and spends big on politics.

Conspiracy theorists accuse former hedge-fund manager George Soros of aiding Nazis, conspiring to fill Budapest with refugees, and trying to start a civil war in the United States. While these theories lack support, little is actually known about how the 93-year-old billionaire passes his days.

Soros built his fortune running what was once the world's largest hedge fund — Quantum Fund.

After he passed his hedge fund to his sons in 2011, Soros has largely focused on his personal goal of creating a more open society through giving to both his personal foundation and a variety of progressive politicians, according to his personal website.

Here's how George Soros built his fortune, how he spends it — and why.

Soros was born as Gyorgy Schwartz into a Jewish family in Budapest on August 12, 1930. They later changed their surname to Soros.

Source: Bloomberg

Soros and his family stayed in Budapest through the city's Nazi occupation from 1944–1945, using fake IDs to hide their Jewish heritage. "Instead of submitting to our fate, we resisted an evil force that was much stronger than we were — yet we prevailed. Not only did we survive, but we managed to help others,” Soros is quoted as saying on his personal website.

Source: GeorgeSoros.com

Soros' family fled Hungary for London as the Soviets swept the country in 1947. In London, he worked part-time as a waiter in a nightclub and as a railroad porter.

Source: GeorgeSoros.com

He later enrolled in the London School of Economics, graduating in 1954.

Source: GeorgeSoros.com, Bloomberg

Soros moved to New York in 1956, and got a job trading foreign stocks for F. M. Mayer.

Source: Bloomberg

Soros founded Quantum Fund in 1973. Quantum would later become the largest hedge fund in the world.

george soros Stanley Druckenmiller.JPG — Soros and Stanley Druckenmiller, the former manager of the Quantum Fund, speak at a press conference in New York in 2000. Reuters Pictures Archive

Source: Bloomberg

Quantum's success made Soros a billionaire. His net worth is now $7.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Source: Bloomberg Billionaires Index

“My success in the financial markets has given me a greater degree of independence than most other people,” Soros said.

Source: GeorgeSoros.com

He retired from managing money for clients in 2011 and passed control of his firm to his sons.

Source: Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Washington Post

Soros returned $1 billion to his investors and established a family office to manage his family's fortune and the assets of his foundation.

Source: Bloomberg Billionaires Index

Soros has been married three times, first to Annaliese Witschak from 1960 to 1983 and later to historian Susan Weber from 1983 to 2005. Soros married his current wife, Tamiko Bolton, in 2013.

George Soros Tamiko Bolton — George Soros and Tamiko Bolton. Getty Images / Sean Gallup / Staff

Source: Biography.com

Soros has five children, although none with Bolton.

2013 11 07T120000Z_1962575607_GM1E9B7116P01_RTRMADP_3_USA.JPG — Soros's son, CEO of JS Capital Management Jonathan Soros (left), holds a picture of Albert Einstien with David Miliband and Soros in 2013. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

Source: Bloomberg, The New York Times

The Soros family has several homes, including the Southampton estate where the billionaire hosted his 80th birthday party in 2010.

Southampton NY — Shinnecock Inlet, Southampton. Soros' estate not pictured. Getty Images / Thinkstock

Source: The New York Post

He's also a longtime Manhattan resident. He once owned 116 East 70th St., a lavish Upper East Side townhouse, with his ex-wife Susan Weber.

Source: Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Curbed

He now owns a duplex on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue with a view of the Central Park reservoir.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Soros also owns a residential compound in Katonah, New York.

Source: AP

A pipe bomb was sent to that home on October 23, 2018.

soros ny bomb house gate — The gate to George Soros's residential compound in the New York City suburb of Katonah, NY. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Source: AP

The bomb was later detonated by authorities in a secluded area.

pipe bomb wasserman shutlz clinton soros obama.JPG — Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Maxine Waters, Andrew Cuomo and James Clapper. REUTERS

Prominent Democrats including Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, George Soros, former President Barack Obama, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and former US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were also sent bombs. No one was hurt.

Source: The New York Times

Soros is often vilified by conservatives for his large contributions to liberal politicians in the United States, Hungary, Russia and elsewhere.

Source: The Chicago Tribune

He identifies as an agnostic Jew.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Much of the criticism of Soros by media and political figures is anti-Semitic.

Source: Al Jazeera

Soros was featured in ads sponsored by the far-right Hungarian government that accused him of colluding to bring Muslim immigrants into Hungary.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán campaigned on a promise to pass a "Stop Soros" bill aimed at silencing his critics, including Soros.

Source: AP, The Chicago Tribune

Closer to home, conspiracy theorists have accused Soros of attempting to start a civil war in the US and funding the violence at the 2017 "Unite the Right" protest in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Source: Al Jazeera

Soros is often accused of collaborating with Nazis during the Holocaust. Comedian Roseanne Barr repeated this conspiracy theory on Twitter in 2018 in one of a series of tweets that resulted in the cancellation of her ABC sitcom.

Source: Al Jazeera

In response, Soros said that such allegations "annoy me greatly." He also said that they are "a total fabrication."

Source: Chicago Tribune

"The bigger the danger, the bigger the threat, the more I feel engaged to confront it," Soros said.

Source: Chicago Tribune

The controversy around Soros isn't limited to conspiracy theories, however.

Soros is sometimes called "the man who broke the Bank of England," after he made $1 billion betting against the British pound as it crashed on "Black Wednesday" in 1992.

Source: Forbes

Soros has said that his opponents fuel him to fight for what he believes in: "I'm painfully aware that they are against the ideas that I stand for."

Source: The Chicago Tribune

The billionaire spends big on causes he believes in, including politics. He spent at least $25 million on voter mobilization efforts to help Clinton and other Democrats during the 2016 elections, one of his spokespeople told the Chicago Tribune.

george soros hillary clinton — Soros and Hilary Clinton speak with Dr. Guy Theodore in Haiti in 1998. AP Photo/Roberto Borea

Source: The Chicago Tribune

Soros was surprised by Clinton's defeat. "Apparently, I was living in my own bubble," he told The Washington Post.

Source: The Chicago Tribune

Clinton lost because "she was too much like a schoolmarm," Soros said. "Talking down to people... instead of listening to them."

Hillary Clinton campaign — Hillary Clinton greets Anastasia Somoza at a 2016 event in Orlando. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Source: Chicago Tribune

Soros also unsuccessfully supported several candidates during the 2018 midterm elections, despite donating $17 million. Several district attorney candidates he supported in California lost to incumbents.

Source: The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian

Soros has also referred to ex-president Donald Trump as a "narcissist" who "considers himself all-powerful."

Source: Chicago Tribune

Soros said he and Trump had been friendly "decades" before Trump took office. The pair spent time together at the home of a mutual friend.

Source: Chicago Tribune

"I had no idea he had political ambitions, but I didn't like his behavior as a businessman," Soros is quoted as saying in a June 2018 Chicago Tribune article.

President Donald Trump gestures as he walks to Marine One across the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Source: Chicago Tribune

Soros has not always been liberal, however. He supported Republican candidates until the invasion of Iraq under President George W. Bush in 2003 turned him against the party.

AP_050910023774 — An American soldier runs for cover during a military operation in Tal Afar, Iraq in September 2005. AP Photo/MNFI, U.S. Navy, Alan D. Monyelle

Source: The Chicago Tribune

Soros doesn't just give money to politicians. He is the founder and chair of Open Society Foundations, a non-profit that disperses grants for education, human rights, criminal justice, and journalism projects.

Source: Open Society Foundations

Soros first became active in philanthropy in 1979, when he funded scholarships for black South Africans during apartheid.

Source: GeorgeSoros.com

Soros has donated more than $32 billion of his own money to his foundation, according to his personal website.

Source: GeorgeSoros.com

Soros named the foundation after a book by Karl Popper, titled "Open Society and Its Enemies." In it, Popper writes how societies succeed only when they are democratic and protect human rights.

Philosopher Sir Karl Poper. Getty Images / David Levenson / Contributor

Source: GeorgeSoros.com

The foundation announced its decision to relocate from Budapest to Berlin in May 2019.

"The government of Hungary has denigrated and misrepresented our work and repressed civil society for the sake of political gain, using tactics unprecedented in the history of the European Union," Open Society Foundations' then-president Patrick Gaspard said in a statement.

Source: Al Jazeera

Central European University, a graduate school founded by Soros, also plans to relocate from Budapest to Vienna due to tensions with the Hungarian government.

Source: Central European University

"It makes it very difficult for me to speak effectively because it can be taken out of context and used against me," Soros said about the conspiracy theories, according to the Chicago Tribune.

FILE PHOTO: Billionaire investor George Soros speaks to the audience at the Schumpeter Award in Vienna, Austria June 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner — Billionaire investor George Soros is awarded the Schumpeter Prize in Vienna Reuters

Source: Chicago Tribune

Russian President Vladimir Putin pushed Soros' foundation out of Russia in 2017, where it had funded numerous projects, including an anti-torture program.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he attends a news conference with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping (not pictured) after their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, June 5, 2019. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina — Russian President Vladimir Putin meets his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Moscow. Reuters

Source: Chicago Tribune

"He intervenes in things all over the world," Putin said of Soros in a 2018 television interview in Austria. "But the State Department will tell you that it has nothing to do with that, that this is the personal business of Mr. Soros."

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during an annual nationwide televised phone-in show in Moscow, Russia June 20, 2019. Sputnik/Alexey Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS — Russian President Putin attends a televised phone-in show in Moscow Reuters

Source: Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg

Outside of his philanthropic work, Soros has also written 14 books on a variety of topics, including the European Union and the global financial crisis.

FILE PHOTO - Business magnate George Soros arrives to speak at the Open Russia Club in London, Britain June 20, 2016. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor/File Photo — George Soros. Reuters

Source: GeorgeSoros.com

At his 80th birthday party, Soros told his 350 guests: "I am a philanthropist. Some maybe think I’m a philanderer. My philosophy is very simple. I like to make a lot of money, so I can give away a lot of money.”

Source: The New York Post

Elon Musk took aim at Soros in May 2023, writing on X that the Jewish billionaire reminded him of the X-Men villain Magneto, and that "Soros hates humanity."

Elon Musk SpaceX Tesla CEO holds hand to face thinking — Elon Musk. Susan Walsh/AP

Source: X

In the summer of 2023, George Soros handed control of his $25 billion philanthropy empire to his son, Alex Soros, making him the chairman of the Open Society Foundations.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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