Left-wing billionaire and philanthropist George Soros’s passing of the torch of his $25 billion empire to his son, Alex Soros, is poised to have major ramifications in future elections and the liberal donor sphere.
The Open Society Foundations, which the elder Soros founded in 1993, is one of the top left-leaning grantmaking networks in the United States. OSF’s board elected Alex Soros as president in December, while the 37-year-old is also now directing political activity for Democracy PAC, which George Soros launched in 2019 and has helped to elect liberal prosecutors under fire from Republicans for being soft on crime.
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“George Soros’s left-wing dark money empire wields massive influence over the Biden administration and progressive congressional leaders,” Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, a conservative watchdog, told the Washington Examiner. “Now, with his ‘more political’ son Alex as the heir-apparent to the multibillion-dollar network, we can expect to see more extreme and dangerous policies backed by the Soros family, including funding weak-on-crime prosecutors and job-killing environmental policies.”
Alex Soros, who is on the investment committee for Soros Fund Management, which oversees the Soros fortune and also OSF’s finances, described himself in an interview published over the weekend with the Wall Street Journal as “more political” than his 92-year-old father. The younger Soros appeared to suggest OSF could play a role in the 2024 presidential election, noting, “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.”
OSF, which is said to steer roughly $1.5 billion per year in grants to other organizations, has established itself as a dominant force in the tax-exempt giving world. The Open Society Policy Center, an advocacy group affiliated with the broader OSF network, doled out $140 million to left-wing causes in 2021, according to financial disclosures. This included $16.9 million to America Votes, a voting rights group that calls itself “the coordination hub of the progressive community,” disclosures show.
The transition to leadership for Alex Soros comes as he gains influence with top Democratic lawmakers. He’s poured about $5.7 million into Democratic campaign coffers and liberal PACs since 2018, including $2 million that year to a committee tied to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), according to campaign finance records. Alex Soros has also met with Schumer at least nine times since 2018 and has been photographed with other lawmakers on various occasions, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the Washington Examiner reported.
Alex Soros also recently met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to discuss the Soros family’s nonprofit group, according to multiple reports. The 37-year-old has been a frequent visitor to President Joe Biden’s White House, scoring over a dozen visits since 2021, White House visitor logs show.
“The Left has many Soroses, including the next generation and their foundations,” Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center, a conservative investigative think tank, told the Washington Examiner. “Alex promises to continue his father’s notoriety.”
George Soros said he and his son “think alike,” a claim that is sure to set the stage for questions from conservatives as to whether the younger Soros will, like the elder Soros, take charge of supporting left-leaning district attorneys. George Soros has been frequently credited with helping to overhaul the criminal justice system by spending tens of millions of dollars backing Democratic prosecutors, including George Gascon in Los Angeles and Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, in cities where crime has soared.
There had long been expectations that George Soros’s 52-year-old son, Jonathan Soros, could take over the family empire. Jonathan Soros, however, exited the family’s investment business in 2011, and George Soros eventually “soured” on him for the role, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Alex Soros, who has scored degrees from New York University and the University of California, Berkeley, is the founding chairman of Bend the Arc Jewish Action, a left-leaning advocacy group that has alleged Republicans and former President Donald Trump have “emboldened” white supremacy, according to OSF.
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He also sits on the board of Bard College, a liberal arts school in New York that received a $500 million pledge from George Soros in 2021 and was slammed around the same time for offering a course called “Abolishing Prisons and the Police,” records show.
The Open Society Foundations did not return a request for comment.
