How Did M Bloomberg Make His Money
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Mike Bloomberg is using a campaign finance loophole to donate millions to the DNC. Here's how the richest person ever to run for US president makes and spends his $50 billion fortune.
Updated
2020-03-20T20:59:00Z
- Mike Bloomberg will sign over $18 million in cash and the former campaign offices and staffers from his defunct presidential campaign to the Democratic National Committee. This massive donation is only possible because he was a candidate, according to The Washington Post.
- Bloomberg dropped out of the race to become the Democratic nominee on March 4 after getting trounced on Super Tuesday.
- The former New York City mayor has an estimated net worth of $50.1 billion, making him the richest person to ever run for president in US history.
- Bloomberg cofounded financial media company Bloomberg LP, a company that now brings in an estimated $10 billion in annual revenue.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
With his $50.1 billion fortune, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is the richest person to run for president in US history.
He'll also become one of the largest benefactors of a political party in history as he plans to transfer the remaining assets of his presidential campaign — including $18 million in cash, his former campaign offices, and the staffers still on his payroll — to the Democratic National Committee through a campaign finance loophole, The Washington Post reported Friday.
Federal rules cap individual contributions to the Democratic National Committee at $355,000 per year, and wealthy individuals can donate up to $865,000 per year to the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee with state parties. (Bloomberg donated the max to that account, according to the Post.) But Bloomberg's millions are allowed to go to the DNC under provisions allowing federal candidates to donate unlimited amounts of money leftover in their campaigns to national and state parties. Bloomberg is proceeding with this plan instead of his previous plan if he failed to win the nomination: an independent expenditure campaign to which he would contribute an unlimited amount of money, aimed at defeating President Donald Trump.
The former New York City mayor — who's also the richest person based in New York — used over $500 million of his own money to fund his campaign before dropping out March 4 after a disappointing showing on Super Tuesday. He endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. Bloomberg spent roughly a quarter of a billion dollars on advertising in Super Tuesday states alone, Business Insider's John Haltiwanger reported.
The former Wall Street executive and former Republican previously said he didn't solicit donations for his campaign, choosing to self-fund it instead.
From his early days working on Wall Street to his generous philanthropic donations, here's how the former presidential candidate made — and spends — his billions.
Born on Valentine's Day in 1942, Bloomberg grew up in Medford, Massachusetts, a small city near Boston.
According to his website, Bloomberg grew up in a middle-class family and was in the Boy Scouts.
After leaving Salomon, Bloomberg used part of his severance to start his own business, a financial information technology company now known as Bloomberg LP.
Originally called Innovative Market Solutions, the company aimed to make it easier for traders to wade through data.
It eventually debuted the Bloomberg terminal (first known as the MarketMaster terminal), and Merrill Lynch was the first customer, purchasing 22 of them and investing $30 million in the company for a 30% stake.
Bloomberg LP became widely successful throughout the 80s and was worth $2 billion by 1989.
The company branched out into other forms of media, including Bloomberg News and Bloomberg TV.
In 2001, Bloomberg entered the world of politics, running for mayor of New York City as a Republican. He was elected just weeks after the September 11 attacks.
While in office, Bloomberg — already a billionaire — accepted only $1 a year throughout his 12 years in the mayor's office, rejecting a salary that would have amounted to $2.7 million throughout his tenure, according to The New York Times.
Instead, Bloomberg spent $650,000 of his own personal fortune throughout his time as mayor, including roughly $6 million on private plane travel, according to the Times.
When he wanted to run for a third term as mayor, Bloomberg campaigned to change the law that limited officials to only two terms in office — and won.
Bloomberg's long-term partner is Diana Taylor, who was the de facto "first lady of New York" during his tenure as mayor.
Taylor has an MBA from Dartmouth University and a public health degree from Columbia University.
Her career includes serving as deputy secretary to former New York governor George Pataki, superintendent of banking for the State of New York, managing director at Wolfensohn Fund Management, and vice chair of Solera Capital, a women-owned private equity firm.
The couple met in 2000 at a Citizens Budget Commission luncheon when she was at Wolfensohn, the Times reported.
Taylor hit the campaign trail for Bloomberg, who she "always thought" would be "a really good president," she told The Washington Post.
Bloomberg has two daughters with his ex-wife, Susan Brown.
Emma Bloomberg, his older daughter, is active in the nonprofit world, having spent more than six years at the Robin Hood Foundation. She's now the CEO of Murmuration, a nonprofit with the goal of reducing inequality and improve outcomes for children.
Emma, who graduated from Princeton University, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Business School, also sits on the board Bloomberg Family Foundation, the Robin Hood Foundation, the KIPP Foundation, New Classrooms, and Leadership for Educational Equity.
Bloomberg's younger daughter, Georgina Bloomberg, is a professional equestrian and author of young adult novels. Georgina is a New York University graduate and is a self-described animal lover who has reportedly rescued five dogs, a pig, a goat, two mules, and two miniature horses.
Bloomberg also reportedly owns a waterfront home in Bermuda. While he was mayor, he flew one of his private jets down to the island about twice a month, according to the Times.
Bloomberg bought and demolished a waterfront house there, replacing it with a $10 million home three times the size, the Times reported.
According to Bermuda's Royal Gazette, Bloomberg is still a part-time resident as of 2019.
In 2015, Bloomberg dropped $25 million on a London mansion that British novelist George Eliot once called home.
The seven-bedroom Chelsea townhouse became Bloomberg's second home in the city, where he had already owned an apartment on Cadogan Square for years.
In 2015, he donated $100 million to Cornell University for the construction of a new tech-focused graduate school in New York City.
The campus on Roosevelt Island opened in September 2017.
Bloomberg has donated at least $3.3 billion to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, in the years since he graduated in 1964.
His first donation to the school was $5 the year after he graduated, and he has continued to fund the university with gifts.
In 2013, Bloomberg gave his alma mater $350 million, bringing the sum of his donations to the school to $1.1 billion. At the time, it was the largest donation to an American educational institution in history.
And in November 2018, he shattered his own record by giving the school $1.8 billion to go toward undergraduate financial aid and recruitment.
Bloomberg is a strong supporter of gun control and has pledged over $50 million toward a new campaign for stricter gun restrictions.
In 2006, he cofounded Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan group of mayors advocating for gun legislation reforms that later merged with Moms Demand Action.
In 2014, Bloomberg pledged to spend $50 million to build a grassroots network of voters dedicated to curbing gun violence, which led to the formation of Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control.
In 2017, he promised to match every donation made to the organization.
Before Bloomberg had even announced his presidential bid, many Democrats believed his virtually unlimited campaign cash, loyal staffers, and philanthropic record would make him a formidable candidate, as Business Insider's Eliza Relman reported.
With his massive fortune, Bloomberg could outspend much of the Democratic primary field, Rebecca Katz, a progressive strategist and former aide to Mayor Bill de Blasio, told Insider in February. Bloomberg spent $30 million on TV ads in a single week before the former mayor had even officially announced his candidacy — more than all his Democratic rivals spent in an entire year.
Bloomberg spent over $500 million on his campaign in total.
Bloomberg refused political donations in his run for president and said that he would not accept the $400,000 presidential salary if he were to win.
"He has never taken a political contribution in his life," Bloomberg's chief adviser Howard Wolfson told the AP. "He is not about to start. He cannot be bought."
Bloomberg's financing of his own campaign nearly kept him from participating in the February 19 debate, but the Democratic National Committee recently eliminated the minimum donor threshold, Insider's Isaac Scher reported. Bloomberg is the only presidential candidate to have personally donated to the DNC, giving it $300,000 last November.
Bloomberg spent a quarter of a billion dollars on ads in the Super Tuesday states alone, but still got trounced by Biden and Sanders.
The former New York City mayor didn't cross the 15% threshold necessary to earn delegates in the North Carolina, Virginia, Vermont, Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Oklahoma primaries, based on preliminary results.
Less than 24 hours after the polls closed, Bloomberg withdrew from the race and endorsed Biden.
Bloomberg plans to gift what's left of his campaign to DNC to help support the eventual Democratic nominee.
The donation will include $18 million in cash, the leases of some of Bloomberg's former campaign offices, and the services of staffers still on the billionaire's payroll, The Washington Post reported.
"While we considered creating our own independent entity to support the nominee and hold the President accountable, this race is too important to have many competing groups with good intentions but that are not coordinated and united in strategy and execution," the Bloomberg campaign wrote in a memo to the DNC Friday, according to The Washington Post.
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How Did M Bloomberg Make His Money
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-billionaire-michael-bloomberg-made-and-spends-his-fortune-2015-7
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