David Gelbaum ( 1950 - September 2018) was an American businessman and primarily green technology investor and environmental philanthropist. Beginning in 2002, he invested up to $500 million in clean-tech companies through his Quercus Trust, with a portfolio of businesses involved in nearly every aspect of the emerging

green economy A green economy is an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without environmental degradation, degrading the environment. It is closely related with ecological econ ...

, be it renewable energy, smart electric grids,

sustainable agriculture Sustainable agriculture is agriculture, farming in sustainability, sustainable ways meeting society's present food and textile needs, without compromising the ability for current or future generations to meet their needs. It can be based on an ...

, electric cars or biological remediation of oil spills. He was CEO and chairman of the Board of Entech Solar, a company he co-founded with Mark O'Neill.

Career

Gelbaum was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the second of four sons. He studied at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

and

California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt or Humboldt) is a public university in Arcata, California. It is one of three polytechnic universities in the California State University (CSU) system and the northernmost c ...

in Northern California before graduating with a B.A. in mathematics from

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...

. After graduating, he worked for a math professor,

Edward O. Thorp Edward Oakley Thorp (born August 14, 1932) is an American mathematics professor, author, hedge fund manager, and blackjack researcher. He pioneered the modern applications of probability theory, including the harnessing of very small correlatio ...

, whose theories led to the establishment of what became Princeton Newport Partners, one of the first investment firms to use mathematical formulas to price stocks and derivatives. Princeton Newport Partners collapsed in 1989, following the indictment of five executives in connection with a scheme to create illegal tax losses. Mr. Thorp and Mr. Gelbaum were not implicated, and an appellate court later overturned the other executives' convictions. The same year, Gelbaum moved to TGS Management, working in a similar capacity until 2002. His investment focus was on the environmental technology and renewable energy industries having served on various public company boards in these industries, including the boards of Solar Enertech Corp., ThermoEnergy Corporation, Clean Power Technologies, Graphene Energy, Advanced Hydro, Inc., Gravity Power, Aerofarms, and Energy Focus, Inc.

Philanthropy

Gelbaum gave $200 million to the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the Pro ...

and $250 million to The Wildlands Conservancy, a land trust he co-founded that has acquired and preserved 1,200 square miles of land in California, including more than a half million acres of the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...

. He was responsible for the Sierra Club reversing its stance on immigration. He notably gave $93 million to the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million. T ...

. Some of his biggest donations, around $250 million, has gone to aid American veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through a charity he founded, the Iraq Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund (IADIF). He signed

The Giving Pledge The Giving Pledge is a charitable campaign, founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, to encourage wealthy people to contribute a majority (i.e. more than 50%) of their wealth to philanthropic causes. , the pledge has had 236 signatories from 28 ...

in 2013. It was revealed in a Bloomberg exposé that Gelbaum, along with two other partners of investment firm TGS Management, had quietly given over $13 billion to charitable causes over the previous two decades, using a web of trusts and private companies to hide their identities.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gelbaum, David 1950s births American investors American philanthropists Sierra Club people University of California, Irvine alumni 2018 deaths 21st-century American Jews