Who is Alexander Soros? George Soros hands control of $25-bn empire to 37-yr-old son

Alexander Soros, son of billionaire financier George Soros, will now be in control of the massive $25 billion empire. The elder Soros said that his son, 37-year old Alex, has “earned it”. The 92-year-old philanthropist, a major backer of liberal causes, had earlier said that he didn’t want his Open Society Foundations (OSF) to be taken over by either of his five children. 

Alexander Soros said that he is “more political” than his father, who is known for being outspoken when it comes to his political leanings. The junior Soros told Wall Street Journal in an interview that he would broaden the foundation’s priorities to include voting and abortion rights as well as gender equality. 

WHO IS ALEXANDER SOROS?

Alexander Soros, son of George Soros from his second wife Susan Weber, is currently the chair of the board of directors at OSF. He graduated from New York University in 2009 with a BA in history, and completed his PhD in 2018 from the University of California, Berkeley. 

The junior Soros was a post-doctoral fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities at Bard College, an honorary fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University in Budapest, and a visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

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In 2012, Soros founded the Alexander Soros Foundation, focusing on social justice and human rights.

Apart from writing for various publications such as New York Times, Reuters, Politico, and the Guardian, Alexander Soros is also the founding chair of Bend the Arc Jewish Action. He is part of the boards of Bard College, the Center for Jewish History, Central European University, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and International Crisis Group.

Soros is also known for his political leanings and for donating to political causes. In the 2010 midterms, Alexander Soros became the top-most student political donor. Soros donated $73,800 to primarily Democratic federal candidates and political committees, according to OpenSecrets, a research group that tracks money in US politics and its effect on elections and public policy. He had then said that backing the Democrats was like choosing the better of two imperfect choices.

He had written to OpenSecrets that the “world will be better off if the Democrats kept control”. ““I am the son of a Hungarian Jew who survived the Nazis… my politics are shaped by my family history and being Jewish. I was raised to sympathise with other minorities and targets of bigotry,” he had said. 

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In 2012, Alexander Soros had donated $200,000 to the Jewish Council for Education and Research, the organisaton behind 2008’s ‘Great Schlep’ that rallied behind then-candidate Barack Obama. In 2008, Obama needed to win the key swing states but he lacked a resonance with the key elderly Jewish voters in Florida. To straighten misconceptions, the Jewish Council enlisted Sarah Silverman to launch ‘The Great Schlep’, a grassroots movement that asked grandchildren of elderly Jewish people to convince their grandparents to reconsider their position on Obama. Obama won Florida by 170,000 votes. 

He also expressed his concerns on Donald Trump’s 2024 election run. "As much as I would love to get money out of politics, as long as the other side is doing it, we will have to do it too," he said to WSJ.

Alexander Soros had recently met US Vice President Kamala Harris. 

WHAT OSF DOES

OSF gives grants to a wide array of groups, focussing mostly on climate justice, equity, expression and justice. They work on these areas through investments and legal action. They have their presence in the US, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and Central Asia, Africa, Middle East and North Africa, and Asia Pacific regions. 

The company awards grants to organisations, offers fellowships to select individuals, and makes private sector investments.

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