George Soros facts for kids

Quick facts for kids George Soros
Soros in 2018
Born	György Schwartz (1930-08-12) August 12, 1930 (age 94) Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary
Citizenship	Hungary United States
Education	London School of Economics (BSc, MSc)
Occupation	Investor hedge fund manager author philanthropist
Known for	Philanthropy Managing Soros Fund Management Founding the Open Society Foundations Advising the Quantum Fund Founding Central European University
Spouse(s)	Annaliese Witschak ​ ​ (m. 1960; div. 1983)​ Susan Weber ​ ​ (m. 1983; div. 2005)​ Tamiko Bolton ​ (m. 2013)​
Children	5, including Robert, Jonathan and Alexander
Parent(s)	Tivadar Soros (father)
Relatives	Paul Soros (brother)
Awards	Presidential Medal of Freedom (2025)

George Soros (born György Schwartz on August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman and investor. He is also well-known as a philanthropist, meaning he gives away large amounts of money to help others.

Early life and education

George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary. His family was Jewish. In 1936, his family changed their last name from Schwartz to Soros. This was a way to protect themselves in Hungary, where people were becoming very unfriendly towards Jewish people.

When Soros was 13, in 1944, Nazi Germany took control of Hungary. Jewish children were not allowed to go to school. His family managed to survive the war by pretending to be Christians. In 1945, Soros also survived the Siege of Budapest, a big battle in the city.

In 1947, Soros moved to England. He studied at the London School of Economics. He earned degrees in philosophy in 1951 and 1954.

Investment career

George Soros started his career working in banks in Britain and America. In 1969, he started his first investment fund called Double Eagle. An investment fund is a company that takes money from many investors and puts it into different businesses to make more money.

The money from Double Eagle helped him start his second fund, Soros Fund Management, in 1970. Double Eagle was later renamed Quantum Fund. When it started, Quantum Fund had $12 million. By 2011, it had grown to $25 billion.

Soros became famous as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England". This happened in 1992 during a UK money crisis. He made a very large investment that earned him $1 billion.

Soros also developed a special idea called the General Theory of Reflexivity. This idea suggests that the value of things in markets is often affected by what people believe, not just by how strong a business is. People's ideas and real events can influence each other in a loop. Soros believed this can lead to times of fast growth or sudden drops in markets.

Wealth and philanthropy

George Soros has been giving money to help others since the 1970s. He first helped black students go to the University of Cape Town in South Africa during apartheid. Apartheid was a system of unfair racial separation. He also supported groups working for change in countries behind the Iron Curtain.

Most of his giving is through the Open Society Foundations. This organization works to promote peaceful democratization. This means helping countries become more democratic. These efforts mostly happen in Central and Eastern Europe.

By 2003, it was estimated that Soros had given away $4 billion. The Open Society Foundations spends about $500 million each year.

Some of his notable projects include:

• Giving $100 million for Internet access at Russian universities.
• Donating $50 million to the Millennium Promise. This project aims to end extreme poverty in Africa.
• Helping people during the siege of Sarajevo.
• Supporting Transparency International, which fights corruption.
• Giving €420 million to the Central European University (CEU).

In 2011, Soros gave $60 million to Bard College. This helped create the Bard College Center for Civic Engagement. He also played a role in Hungary's peaceful change from communism to democracy.

In 2017, Soros transferred $18 billion to the Open Society Foundations. In 2018, he donated $2 million to the Wikimedia Foundation.

In 2020, Soros announced a $1 billion donation. This was to create the Open Society University Network. It is a global network of schools working with Bard College and the Central European University.

In July 2020, his Foundations announced plans to give $220 million. This money was for groups working on racial justice and civic engagement. He also gave another $100 million to Bard College. In 2021, he pledged $500 million more to Bard College. This was one of the largest donations ever to higher education in the United States.

Personal life

George Soros has been married three times. He has five children.

His first wife was Annaliese Witschak. They married in 1960 and divorced in 1983. They had three children:

• Robert Daniel Soros (born 1963): He helped start the Central European University.
• Andrea Soros Colombel (born 1965): She founded the Trace Foundation. This group helps Tibetan communities in China.
• Jonathan Tivadar Soros (born 1970): He is an investment manager. He also co-founded Friends of Democracy, a group that works to reduce the influence of money in politics.

In 1983, George Soros married Susan Weber. They divorced in 2005. They have two children:

• Alexander Soros (born 1985): He is known for donating to social and political causes.
• Gregory James Soros (born 1988): He is an artist.

In 2013, Soros married Tamiko Bolton. His older brother, Paul Soros, also a private investor, passed away in 2013.

Honors and awards

George Soros has received many honorary degrees. These are special degrees given to people who have achieved great things. He received them from universities like the University of Oxford and Yale University.

In 2008, he was added to Institutional Investors Alpha's Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame. In 2017, he became an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy. This is a high honor for people in humanities and social sciences.

The Financial Times named him their Person of the Year for 2018. They called him a "standard bearer for liberal democracy." In 2019, he received the Ridenhour Prize for Courage. In 2025, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the United States President.

Interesting facts about George Soros

• Soros's father was a well-known speaker of Esperanto. This is a language created to be easy for people from different countries to learn. His father taught him to speak it too.
• In Hungarian, soros means "next in line." In Esperanto, it means "will soar."
• When he was a student, Soros worked as a railway porter and a waiter.
• As of October 2023, his net worth was about US$6.7 billion.
• Soros is known as one of the most generous givers. He has donated 64% of his original fortune.

George Soros quotes

• "The main difference between me and other people who have amassed this kind of money is that I am primarily interested in ideas, and I don't have much personal use for money."
• "Discount the obvious, bet on the unexpected."
• "The hardest thing to judge is what level of risk is safe."
• "If investing is entertaining, if you're having fun, you're probably not making any money. Good investing is boring."
• "It's more difficult, you know, to bring about positive change than it is to make money."

Images for kids

• 

  Protesters in Tbilisi blocking the way from the Open Society Institute office, 2005.

• 

  Anti-Soros graffiti in Resen, Macedonia, 2018. It reads: #Stop Soros #I will profit.

See also

In Spanish: George Soros para niños