On Monday, an explosive device was found outside billionaire George Soros’ home in Westchester County, New York. An employee discovered the package and called the police. Soros was not home at the time.
Soros, a major political activist and philanthropist who has spent much of his fortune backing liberal causes, has long been vilified on the right. A spokesperson for his foundation pointed to the charged political climate as an explanation for the incident.
“The hateful rhetoric that dominates politics in the U.S. and in so many countries around the world breeds extremism and violence,” said a spokesperson for his philanthropic network, the Open Society Foundations. “In this climate of fear, falsehoods and rising authoritarianism, just voicing your views can draw death threats.”
On Twitter, Soros has been falsely linked to the caravan of Central Americans who are making their way through Mexico toward the U.S.
Soros fled his home country of Hungary in 1946 following World War II. He worked as a railway porter and waiter to put himself through the London School of Economics. He later moved to New York where he found his way to Wall Street and started his first hedge fund, the Quantum Fund, with $12 million. In 1992, he shorted the British pound and reportedly made a profit of $1 billion. He became known as the man who broke the Bank of England.
Soros has since given billions to further human rights and democracy around the world through his Open Society Foundations. He has also thrown his support behind a range of liberal groups, including Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans & Intersex Association. In the political sphere, he has been a major donor to Democratic candidates like John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
In fact Soros, 88, is one of the biggest philanthropists in America. He has put $32 billion toward philanthropic entities—primarily his charitable foundation—in his lifetime, which puts him behind only Bill Gates ($35.8 billion) and Warren Buffett ($35.1 billion) in terms of dollars given.
Measured as a percent of his net worth, Soros has given away more than any other current member of The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, with 79% of his fortune going to charity. He has ramped up his giving in recent years and, in 2017, announced that he had shifted $18 billion into his Open Society Foundations. That put a dent in his net worth, which stood at $23 billion at the time. He is now worth an estimated $8.3 billion.
Since 1993, the Open Society Foundations have distributed more than $14 billion, largely to groups that promote basic human rights and principles of democratic government, like Amnesty International and UN Women. In 2016, Soros, who is an immigrant, said $500 million would be put toward helping migrants and refugees, particularly those who are flooding into Europe.
Soros has also placed himself in the center of America’s culture wars by giving to groups that support abortion, promote the rights of gays and lesbians and seek to curb abuses by the police.
As a result, he has been lambasted by many on the right for wielding his enormous fortune to carry out a left-wing agenda. He has also found himself the subject of a whole host of conspiracy theories. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump tweeted that those protesting Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court were paid by Soros and others. Last week, Republican congressman Matt Gaetz suggested that Soros was paying a caravan of migrants to head from Honduras to the United States. The actress Roseanne Barr has accused Soros of collaborating with Nazis. A spokesperson for Soros denied that there was any truth to these claims.
The allegations won’t likely rattle Soros. “My success in the financial markets has given me a greater degree of independence than most other people. This allows me to take a stand on controversial issues: in fact it obliges me to do so,” Soros once wrote.
