Billionaire philanthropist and investor George Soros, 92, will hand over control of Open Society Foundations to his son Alex, who was named president in December.
The foundation donates money to humanitarian and democratic causes ranging from criminal justice reform to climate change initiatives and controls most of the $25 billion in assets administered by the family office from Soros. The news was first reported in the Wall Street Journal and was confirmed by a spokesperson for the organization.
“I am more political” than the elder Soros, he said Alex Soros, 37, to the newspaper. He added that he was concerned about Donald Trump’s possible run for the White House. “As much as I’d love to make money out of politics, as long as the other side does it, we’ll have to do it too.”
Alex Soros recently met with Biden administration officials, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to push through issues related to the family foundation, the Journal reported.
Soros plans to “double down the defense of voting rights and personal freedom at home and support the cause of democracy abroad,” he told the Financial Times, through a spokesman. The George Soros’s priorities in American politics will not change with the appointment of Alexthe newspaper reported, citing an unidentified person close to the family.
Who is Alex Soros?
Alexander Soros or Alex -as everyone knows him- defines himself as a center-left thinker who is very aware of the wealth he possesses, but it is no coincidence that the first interview he grants is to Wall Street Journalthe representative newspaper of the establishment American financier.
If his father has been the scourge of the right in recent years -and particularly of Donald Trump or Elon Musk, more recently-, it is foreseeable that Alex will be even more so, since he has advanced that although he and his father They think the same, he feels more committed to the causes most loved by progressivism in the US: abortion, gender equality, the right to vote and racial discrimination.
“Our side has to get better at being more patriotic and inclusive,” he told the newspaper.
The foundation that he has chaired up to now, the Open Society Foundation, has also shown interest in a greater commitment to Latin Americaand has increased its annual investment in the continent from 12 to 60 million, with a marked interest in supporting the peace agreement in Colombia.
Another difference with his father is his Jewish identity: if for George Soros it was almost accidental - and his foundation did not distinguish itself by supporting Jewish causes - Alex celebrates Jewish holidays and has visited Israel on several occasions. His university doctoral thesis was entitled: “The Jewish Dionysus: Heine, Nietzsche, and the Politics of Literature.”
The parties of Alex Soros and American football
Seven years ago, the tabloid The New York Postspokesman for right-wing populism, dedicated a long, unkind article to Alex Soros, describing him as something like a unredeemed party animal who spent the summers on the exclusive beaches of the Hamptons, the summer destination of the great New York fortunes.
The newspaper said that he liked to surround himself with basketball stars, musical celebrities or ephemeral influencers seasonal, and that this environment attracted him after having spent a relatively discreet childhood in Katonah County (upstate New York) in which there was no lack of opulent details such as a llama farm or a movie theater for family consumption.
Over the years, Alex withdrew from the frivolous world of parties and increasingly focused on his father’s foundation. It was perhaps that twist that made George Soros pay attention to his profile, to the detriment of the one who until recently sounded like the future heir and who was Alex’s half brother, Jonathanborn from the founder’s first marriage.
Alex Soros has complained on more than one occasion that his father was an absent figure during his childhood and adolescence -he said that his head was on Wall Street even though he was physically with his children-, but the relationship between them began to improve just after the divorce of his parents.
So much so that George has been leaning more and more on Alex, while he has left behind his “party” profile; currently, and beyond philosophy and politics, there is only one frivolity that is allowed: American football, and more precisely the team new york jets of which he is a confessed fan.
With information from Bloomberg and EFE.
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