The Profile

Alex Soros: From party boy to empire boss

As the surprise boss of Open Society Foundations, pipping his brother to the post, the billionaire businessman’s son will command a $25 billion global network

Alex Soros isn’t the first son of a billionaire to have leaned into the high life but now he has just announced himself to the world as the new ruler of his dad’s philanthropic empire. Illustration: Peter Hanan

In 2016, as in many other years before and since, George Soros found himself firmly in the eye of the storm.

The billionaire businessman, a devout supporter of liberal causes, was pouring tens of millions of dollars into Hillary Clinton’s ailing and ill-fated presidential campaign – making him the sworn enemy of many supporters of Donald Trump.

Soros, a Hungarian-American, had long been a bogeyman for American conservatives. But in 2016, the year of Trump’s ...