Michael R. Bloomberg

Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman and politician. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P., and was its CEO from 1981 to 2001 and again from 2014 to 2023. He served as the 108th mayor of New York City for three terms, from 2002 to 2013, and was a candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president of the United States.

Bloomberg grew up in Medford, Massachusetts, and graduated from Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland, and Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts. He began his career at the securities brokerage firm Salomon Brothers before forming his own company in 1981. That company, Bloomberg L.P., is a financial information, software and media firm that is known for its Bloomberg Terminal. Bloomberg spent the next twenty years as its chairman and CEO. According to ''Forbes'', as of May 2025, Bloomberg's estimated net worth stood at US$104.7 billion, making him the 18th richest individual in the world. Bloomberg, who has signed the Giving Pledge, has given away $17.4 billion to philanthropic causes in his lifetime. After a brief stint as a full-time philanthropist, he re-assumed the position of CEO at Bloomberg L.P. by the end of 2014.

A lifelong Democrat before seeking elective office, Bloomberg switched his party registration in 2001 to run for mayor as a Republican. He was elected the 108th mayor of New York City in 2001. He won a second term in 2005, and left the Republican Party two years later. Bloomberg campaigned to change the city's term limits law, and was elected to his third term in 2009 as an Independent on the Republican ballot line. Pursuing socially liberal and fiscally moderate policies, Bloomberg developed a technocratic managerial style.

As the mayor of New York, Bloomberg established public charter schools, rebuilt urban infrastructure, and supported gun control, public health initiatives, and environmental protections. He also led a rezoning of large areas of the city, which facilitated massive and widespread new commercial and residential construction after the September 11 attacks. Bloomberg is considered to have had far-reaching influence on the politics, business sector, and culture of New York City during his three terms as mayor. He has also faced significant criticism for the city's stop and frisk program, support for which he reversed with an apology before his 2020 presidential run.

In November 2019, four months before Super Tuesday, Bloomberg officially launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in the 2020 election. He ended his campaign in March 2020, after having won only 61 delegates. Bloomberg self-funded $935 million for his candidacy, which set the record for the most expensive presidential primary campaign and highest spending in any political capacity by a single individual in U.S. history. In 2024, Bloomberg received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden. As of 2025, Bloomberg is the last individual to win or hold citywide office in New York City as a Republican.

Early life and education

Bloomberg was born on February 14, 1942, at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, to William Henry Bloomberg (1906–1963), a bookkeeper for a dairy company, and Charlotte (née Rubens) Bloomberg (1909–2011). His father never earned more than $6,000 a year. William Henry Bloomberg died suddenly when his son was in college. The Bloomberg Center at the Harvard Business School was named in William Henry's honor. Bloomberg's family is Jewish, and he is a member of the Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. Bloomberg's paternal grandfather, Rabbi Alexander "Elick" Bloomberg, was a Polish Jew. Bloomberg's maternal grandfather, Max Rubens, was a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant from present-day Belarus, and his maternal grandmother was born in New York to Lithuanian Jewish parents.

The family lived in Allston until Bloomberg was two years old, followed by Brookline, Massachusetts, for two years, finally settling in the Boston suburb of Medford, Massachusetts, where he lived until after he graduated from college.

Bloomberg became an Eagle Scout when he was twelve years old. He graduated from Medford High School in 1960. He went on to attend Johns Hopkins University, where he joined the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi. While there, he constructed the blue jay costume for the university's mascot. He graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering. In 1966, he graduated from Harvard Business School with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree.

File:Michael Bloomberg in 1964 Hullabaloo.jpg,
File:Michael Bloomberg in 1960 Blue and White.jpg,

Bloomberg is a member of Kappa Beta Phi and Tau Beta Pi. He wrote an autobiography, ''Bloomberg by Bloomberg'', with help from Bloomberg News editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler.

Business career

In 1966, Bloomberg was hired for a job earning $9,000 per year at Salomon Brothers, a large Wall Street investment bank. Salomon Brothers later promoted him to the equities desk. Bloomberg became a general partner at Salomon Brothers in 1972; he headed equity trading and, later, systems development. Phibro Corporation bought Salomon Brothers in 1981, and the new management fired Bloomberg, paying him $10 million for his equity in the firm.

Using the money he received from Phibro, Bloomberg—having designed in-house computerized financial systems for Salomon—set up a data services company named Innovative Market Systems (IMS) based on his belief that Wall Street would pay a premium for high-quality business information, delivered instantaneously on computer terminals in a variety of usable formats. The company sold customized computer terminals that delivered real-time market data, financial calculations and other analytics to Wall Street firms. The terminal, first called the Market Master terminal, was released to market in December 1982.

In 1986, IMS renamed itself Bloomberg L.P. Over the years, ancillary products including Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg Message, and Bloomberg Tradebook were launched. Bloomberg, L.P. had revenues of approximately $10 billion in 2018. As of 2019, the company has more than 325,000 terminal subscribers worldwide and employs 20,000 people in dozens of locations.

The culture of the company in the 1980s and 1990s has been compared to a fraternity, with employees bragging in the company's office about their sexual exploits. The company was sued four times by female employees for sexual harassment, including one incident in which a victim claimed to have been raped. To celebrate Bloomberg's 48th birthday, colleagues published a pamphlet entitled '' The Portable Bloomberg: The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Bloomberg''. Among various sayings that were attributed to him, several have subsequently been criticized as sexist or misogynistic.

When he left the position of CEO to pursue a political career as the mayor of New York City, Bloomberg was replaced by Lex Fenwick and later by Daniel L. Doctoroff, after his initial service as deputy mayor under Bloomberg. After completing his final term as the mayor of New York City, Bloomberg spent his first eight months out of office as a full-time philanthropist. In fall 2014, he announced that he would return to Bloomberg L.P. as CEO at the end of 2014, succeeding Doctoroff, who had led the company since February 2008. Bloomberg resigned as CEO of Bloomberg L.P. to run for president in 2019.

In January 2024, John P. Angelos reached a $1.725 billion deal to sell the Baltimore Orioles to a group led by David Rubenstein

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