US billionaire philanthropist George Soros has handed over the running of his $25bn financial and charitable empire to his son Alex.
The Hungarian-born financier said his son had “earned it”, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Alex is the only family member sitting on the investment committee for Soros Fund Management, the vehicle which the Wall Street Journal says is managing the $25bn for the family and the charitable foundation.
Alex took over at the Open Society Foundations (OSF) as chairman in December and is also in charge of his father’s “super PAC” a US mechanism to direct funds to political parties.
While they broadly share the same political views, he told the Wall Street Journal that he is “more political” than his father and that he would campaign against Donald Trump’s attempt to run for a second term as US president.
“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,” Alex Soros said.
He said the Open Society Foundations would pursue the same aims it had under his father including free speech, criminal justice reform, minority and refugee rights and backing liberal politicians. But he also wants to include voting rights, abortion and gender equity initiatives while pursuing a more domestic US-focused agenda.
Soros is a backer of liberal causes
George Soros, 92, a major backer of liberal causes, was born in Hungary, where as a child he lived through the horror of the Nazi occupation in 1944-45. His family concealed their Jewish identity to survive.
After the war he left Hungary for London, later moving to New York where he went on to make billions through his hedge fund activities.
He gained notoriety in the UK after making $1bn correctly betting the pound would fall in 1992.
When the Berlin wall came down, paving the way for the establishment of democratic governments in the former Soviet bloc, he established the Open Society Foundations (OSF) to support the process. The OSF now spends about $1.5bn a year backing liberal causes, educational organizations and human rights in more than 120 countries.
Some of its causes have rankled the right wing, including tackling racial bias in the US justice system.
The OSF shifted its international operations office from Budapest to Berlin in 2018 after the Hungarian government led by Viktor Orban campaigned explicitly against Soros personally and against the foundation’s work.
Last year he warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to be the “beginning of the third world war” that could spell the end of civilization.
He launched a ferocious attack on Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He also heavily criticized the former German chancellor Angela Merkel for cozying up to Moscow and Beijing.
Soros warned that autocratic regimes were rising in influence and power and the global economy was heading for a depression.
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