Billionaire investor George Soros has infused his nonprofit apparatus with $18 billion.
The Open Society Foundations will live on long after its founder, thanks to a move by Soros Fund Management LLC, which likely makes it the second-largest philanthropic group behind the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Wall Street Journal confirmed the transfer with foundation officials on Tuesday.
“It’s an ongoing process of migration from a hedge fund toward a pool of capital deployed to support a foundation over the long term,” committee member Bill Ford told the newspaper.
Mr. Soros and his dozens of endeavors across the globe have been lightning rods for criticism due to his support of left-wing causes, which includes the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. and relaxed immigration policies.
The billionaire has also been a critic of President Trump.
“I personally am convinced that he is going to fail,” Mr. Soros said in January while at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Not because of people like me who would like him to fail. But because his ideas that guide him are inherently self-contradictory, and the contradictions are actually already embodied by his advisers … and his Cabinet.”
Mr. Soros declined to comment for The Journal’s report.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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