Who Is George Soros?

Explicit content warning

08/11/20 • 47 min

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In some ways, George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who turns 90 this week, is the sum of the worst horrors and greatest triumphs of the twentieth century. A survivor of World War II who narrowly escaped Nazi concentration camps, Soros would escape totalitarianism twice, making his way to London on the eve of the Soviet occupation of his hometown, Budapest, Hungary. Soros went on to become one of the financial titans of global capitalism, a ruthless hedge fund manager whose aggressive currency speculation infamously broke the Bank of England. As he amassed an immense fortune, Soros would spend $32B on his Open Society Foundation, an organization through which he seeks to nourish liberal democracy worldwide. It’s that very work in support of democracy which has led Soros to become the reviled target of both Western antidemocratic conservatism and Eastern antiliberalism. On this episode of Who Is?, Sean Morrow explores the story of one of the most loved--and loathed--people on the planet.

Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford and senior fellow at Stanford University, who has been writing about the transition to democracy in Eastern Europe for 40 years
Hannes Grassegger, an investigative reporter based in Bern, Switzerland, who focuses on digital power and information warfare
Kati Marton, a Hungarian born writer, journalist, and activist. Marton is currently working on her tenth book, a biography of Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel
Emily Tamkin, U.S. editor and Washington correspondent at The New Statesman, a political and cultural magazine based in the United Kingdom. Tamkin's new book, “The Influence of Soros: Politics, Power, and the Struggle for an Open Society,” is available now

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Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford and senior fellow at Stanford University, who has been writing about the transition to democracy in Eastern Europe for 40 years
Hannes Grassegger, an investigative reporter based in Bern, Switzerland, who focuses on digital power and information warfare
Kati Marton, a Hungarian born writer, journalist, and activist. Marton is currently working on her tenth book, a biography of Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel
Emily Tamkin, U.S. editor and Washington correspondent at The New Statesman, a political and cultural magazine based in the United Kingdom. Tamkin's new book, “The Influence of Soros: Politics, Power, and the Struggle for an Open Society,” is available now

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Previous Episode

Who Is Paul Singer?

On Who Is?, Sean Morrow talks a lot about the system--and the powerful financial interests that exert a profound influence on it. But who are these check-writing billionaires, where do they make their money, and how do they spend it in order to influence our democracy? One of them, Paul Singer, runs a hedge fund, Elliott Management, whose business is activism--but not the activism you might think of. Elliott’s “activism” is activist investing, and the changes Elliott advocates for--at major main street companies like AT&T--often involve tens of thousands of layoffs, and result in the collapse of small towns and regional economies. That’s not all: Elliott is also in the business of using the courts to force entire countries, like Argentina, into default, making a handsome profit in the process. What does Paul Singer do with all of the money he makes at Elliott? Invest it in politics, and think tanks that seek to advance American militarism in the Middle East. On this episode of Who Is?, the story of one of America’s financial titans, and the power he wields over not only our economy, but our democracy.

Michelle Celarier, a renowned finance journalist who has covered hedge funds and the men who run them for New York Magazine, Fortune, Institutional Investor, and the New York Post
Eli Clifton, an investigative journalist who focuses on how money influences U.S. foreign policy, and research director of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft's Democratizing Foreign Policy Program
Nell Geiser, the director of research for the Communications Workers of America
Jen Wieczner, a senior writer at Fortune Magazine, where she covers finance, tech, and hedge funds and their role in the market

The views expressed in this podcast include opinion unless cited as fact and Paul Singer and his hedge fund firm, Elliot Management Corporation, have previously denied any claims of wrongdoing

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Next Episode

Who Is Mark Zuckerberg?

There are more than 7 billion people on the planet, and as of this year, nearly 3 billion of them use Facebook or one of the platforms it owns: Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. As a result, the company is massively profitable, which has made Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and CEO, one of the most wealthy and powerful human beings in the world. At the helm of this behemoth, Zuckerberg wields a power that, according to legendary investigative journalist Julia Angwin, is unlike any other in history. On this episode of “Who is?,” Sean Morrow confronts Facebook, and the man in charge of the platform on which much of human digital communication occurs, and on which most of the world’s digital community resides.

Julia Angwin, a renowned investigative journalist who has written about tech for the Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, and is now editor in chief of The Markup, which she founded
Sarah Frier, who writes about social media for Bloomberg in San Francisco. She’s the author of “No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram,” which was published in April of this year

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