Stephen Schwarzman to Direct Majority of $45 Billion Fortune to His Own Foundation for AI and Education Causes

Stephen Schwarzman plans to transfer a substantial majority of his fortune to the Stephen A. Schwarzman Foundation upon his death, according to an internal report obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. Philanthropy focused on AI and education. The foundation held $65 million in assets as of 2024. Schwarzman cofounded Blackstone in 1985 with Peter G. Peterson using $400,000 in seed capital. 3 trillion in assets.

24 billion in compensation, with the bulk coming from dividends on his roughly 20 percent stake in Blackstone and a $350,000 salary. His net worth stands at around $45 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Schwarzman has committed more than $1 billion to charity over his lifetime and signed the Giving Pledge, a commitment for ultrawealthy individuals to give away the majority of their wealth.

Other signatories include MacKenzie Scott, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg. Schwarzman traces his approach to giving to his grandfather, who packed prosthetics, wheelchairs, clothes, books, and toys to send to children in Israel every month. “When I asked him why, he explained that it was not only his obligation, but also his privilege to help others in need,” Schwarzman wrote in his 2020 Giving Pledge letter.

Major gifts include a $350 million donation in 2018 to seed the Schwarzman College of Computing at MIT, a £150 million gift to the University of Oxford for a humanities center with an institute for ethics in AI, and $150 million for a student center at Yale.

He created the Schwarzman Scholars fellowship program at Tsinghua University in Beijing and donated $100 million for the renovation of the New York Public Library.

U.S. Catholic school system. In his Giving Pledge letter, Schwarzman cited artificial intelligence as a defining concern. “I saw an urgent need to ensure our society is prepared for the changes to come, which is why I have funded two large-scale programs related to AI, both of which incorporate a focus on AI’s ethical and policy considerations,” he wrote.