Over the past four decades, George Soros has earned himself a top spot in the annals of philanthropy, building a giving operation famed (or infamous, to some) for its world-spanning influence, but also for its byzantine complexity and uncertain prospects at a time when its driving prerogative, a vibrant civil society, has found itself increasingly embattled.
Like Open Society Foundations itself, the house of Soros has long been in flux, preparing for the moment when its patriarch passes away. Against that backdrop, the news that George’s son Alexander Soros has taken the reins as chair of OSF is one of the most important recent examples of philanthropic power passing from parent to child — along with all the baggage and uncertainty that comes with that.
The 37-year-old Alex Soros is George’s son by his second wife, Susan Weber. Judging by age alone, he could very well be the elder Soros’ grandson; George is 92. But despite their vast generational gap, George told the Wall Street Journal that he and his millennial successor “think alike.” Both men have an abiding love for philosophy and they’re both committed to progressive values — and to progressive politics.
Their reported likemindedness isn’t the only reason that Alex Soros’ ascent to the head of his father’s philanthropic empire comes as no great surprise. Alex has long been in training for the role, serving as deputy chair on OSF’s board for years. All the while, he’s pursued charitable work of his own via the Alexander Soros Foundation, and served as founding chair of Bend the Arc Jewish Action, among other roles.
Still, Alex Soros has some very big shoes to fill at OSF, and significant organizational challenges to address. The past several years have been tumultuous ones as OSF preps for George’s eventual passing. The famously unwieldy organization has been undergoing a “major transformation” in pursuit of greater focus and impact, a process that really got traction under OSF’s current president Mark Malloch-Brown, who succeeded Patrick Gaspard at the end of 2020. George Soros has given over $32 billion to OSF over the years, representing the majority of his net worth. He still has around $6.7 billion to spare.
Having been elected chair of OSF’s board this past December, Alex Soros faces a number of major questions and tensions in his new role as philanthropic kingpin: domestic versus international, centralized versus decentralized, top-down versus bottom-up, political polarization versus bridge-building. And then there’s the biggest question of all: Can he hack it?
Who is Alex Soros?
While George Soros spent his formative teenage years on the run after the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944, and later as an immigrant in London, Alex Soros spent his own as a son of extreme privilege in New York. Described by childhood friends as “introverted, overweight and embarrassed by his family’s wealth,” Alex bonded with his father, already an iconic investor, over politics and philosophy.
Later, after earning a history degree at NYU in 2009, Alex developed a reputation as a fixture in New York’s upper-crust party scene. But more serious pursuits soon followed as Alex ramped up his philanthropic involvement — including at OSF — and got his Ph.D. in 2018 from the University of California, Berkeley.
Through the Alexander Soros Foundation, which got up and running in 2012, Alex gave away over $7 million through 2018. This giving, while separate from OSF, coincided with the young heir’s expanding role at the larger organization and offers a window into his personal philanthropic interests, which echo those of his father in many ways.
The nexus between human rights and environmentalism has been a prime focus for Alex in his personal giving, including via gifts to Seeds of Africa, an Ethiopia-based education and community development organization, and to Global Witness, an NGO that fights natural resource exploitation, human rights abuses and associated ills. Other grantees include Bend the Arc, the Rainforest Foundation, Libraries Without Borders, the Center for a New American Security, the Equal Justice Initiative, a progressive justice reform hub, and the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a top new labor movement organization.
Alex Soros once served on OSF’s global board alongside with his half-brother Jonathan Soros and half-sister Andrea Soros Columbel. But for some time now, Alex has been ascendent as George Soros’ likely successor, especially since differences between George and Jonathan caused the older son to cut ties with the family business around 2011. Andrea Soros Columbel remains on OSF’s overall board of directors, along with George Soros’ wife Tamiko Bolton Soros.
The Alexander Soros Foundation, meanwhile, appears to have been mostly inactive over the past several years, with its tax filings showing minimal assets and grants — presumably as Alex has focused his attention more squarely on OSF.
“I’m more political”
Alex Soros’ extended apprenticeship at the Open Society Foundations coincided with two major developments that’ll prove crucial to how the $1.5 billion-a-year grantmaker evolves (besides the need to gird for George Soros’ eventual death). Both have been a long time in the making.
The first is external: rising right-wing populism at home and authoritarianism abroad that threaten OSF’s long-term mission and goals. The second is internal: OSF’s longstanding struggle to wrangle the “octopus” that is its own famously chaotic and haphazard organizational structure.
Regarding the first, there’s every reason to think Alex and George are mostly on the same page. We’re not about to see OSF pivot away from its characteristically progressive U.S. grantmaking and global civil society commitments. Likewise, Alex seems to be every bit the enthusiastic political donor his father has been. “I’m more political,” he told the Journal, a statement sure to raise the hackles of those on the right who’ve long painted George Soros as the ultimate political villain behind the curtain.
While the antisemitic conspiracy theorizing that has long swirled around the Soros clan is unfounded, the family’s political influence is undeniable. George Soros has indeed been among the top political donors in the U.S. for many election cycles running, and took the top spot in 2022. Alex appears to share that predilection, telling the Journal, “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.”
What does that mean for OSF? Most likely, with Alex in charge, U.S. grantmaking will continue to prioritize progressive civic engagement and power-building strategies, with an emphasis on voting rights, democracy protection and empowering communities of color. We’ll also probably see Alex and other OSF personnel take steps to remain close to the levers of power in Washington D.C. — sometimes literally, as we noted in the section on George Soros in our recent roundup of the most influential Beltway givers. Records show that the younger Soros has visited the White House 17 times over the past two years.
Alex also doesn’t appear keen to dial down OSF’s support for free expression, at home or abroad. He did mention to the Journal that he’s more focused on domestic politics than his father, but whether that’ll impact OSF’s long-term orientation remains unclear.
Big shoes to fill
More telling, perhaps, than Alex’s political similarities to his father are his potential differences from George when it comes to temperament and leadership style. This gets back to that second big development at OSF: a recent “radical restructuring” to build a leaner, more focused organization — while at the same time somehow making good on progressive prerogatives to get closer to the ground and channel community voices.
As one might expect, OSF’s byzantine organizational structure and longtime “lack of focus” can be traced to its founder. Impulsive and famously prone to reconsideration as an investor, George Soros brought an all-of-the-above approach to philanthropy, throwing lots of money at lots of problems in lots of places. “Soros took delight in happening upon projects sponsored by his foundation unbeknownst to him,” wrote the Ford Foundation’s Darren Walker in an essay collection on George Soros published last year.
That, combined with the fact that OSF was originally a spend-down philanthropy, meant the elder Soros paid little attention to refining a programmatically focused, perpetual grantmaking institution. OSF’s ongoing evolution toward something more streamlined and effective in the global fight for an open society — a process that hasn’t been painless, as we’ve reported — will be one of Alex Soros’ paramount challenges going forward.
Alex Soros’ managerial style has been described as “collegial” and “hands-on,” but his skills as top leader in charge remain unproven. We’ll have to wait and see whether he can meaningfully expand on his father’s legacy as a philanthropic leader in his own right. Whatever his merits, the younger man’s rise to prominence is nothing if not a hereditary crowning, and there’s some irony there, given OSF’s commitment to democracy and democratic principles. As more and more philanthropic heirs succeed their parents as top grantmakers, it’s worth remembering just how often even professionalized progressive philanthropy remains a family business.
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