Michael H. Steinhardt (born December 7, 1940) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager, philanthropist, and former antiquities collector. In 1967, he founded a hedge fund, Steinhardt Partners which he ran until he closed it in 1995. After a hiatus from work, he returned to head WisdomTree Investments in 2004. In January 2014 he was on the cover of Forbes Magazine, referred to as "Wall Street's greatest trader."^[1][2] Forbes Magazine reported his net worth at $1.1 billion as of October 2018.^[3]

Steinhardt earned a bachelor's degree at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1960. He started his career working for the mutual fund Calvin Bullock and the brokerage firm Loeb, Rhoades & Co. (the precursor to Shearson Loeb Rhoades).^[4] Steinhardt's father was his first investment client, giving his son envelopes stuffed with cash to put in the stock market giving him seed money to begin his investment career.^[4]

Forbes Magazine reported Steinhardt's net worth at US$1.1 billion as of October 2018.^[3] The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University bears his name in recognition of two $10 million donations.^[10] After 2018 sexual harassment allegations against Steinhardt, the student government at the school called for removal of the philanthropist’s name; a call which was renewed after his 2021 deal with the Manhattan District Attorney about Steinhardt's 180 stolen antiquities.^[11]

In the 1990s, Steinhardt bought and donated Steeple Jason Island and Grand Jason Island in the Falkland Islands to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), along with US$425,000 for a research station to be named after himself and his wife.^[12] Steinhardt invested in baseball teams, owning part of the Miami Marlins and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Steinhardt is the past chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council and a board member of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, to which he donated $250,000 in 2002.^[13]

On September 12, 2018, The Jewish Week reported that Hillel International was investigating Steinhardt for "inappropriate sexual remarks" to two female employees of one of the organizations he supports. The Jewish Week story quoted "sources close to the investigation" as saying that since, 2015, when the first complaint by a female employee occurred, it has been a "practice" within the organization for no female employee to have meetings with Steinhardt alone. The second woman making allegations received a written apology from Steinhardt, dated August 23, 2011, acknowledging his inappropriate comments made toward her and two male colleagues at a meeting the year before. The report noted that Hillel had "quietly" removed his name from the board of governors listed on their website while the organization was investigating the claims.^[22][23] Hillel made an official statement that the complaints about sexual harassment by its donors were justified.^[24]

Steinhardt stated in response to the findings "If I had been told immediately about concerns regarding anything I said at the time, I would have apologized immediately. I only recently learned about this investigation when Hillel called me about comments I made several years ago. I am sorry and deeply regret causing any embarrassment, discomfort or pain, which was never my intention."^[24] As of March 2019, six women had come forward alleging that Steinhardt had made unwanted sexual requests of them.^[25]

Steinhardt is an art collector, especially of antiquities. A special exhibition, "Ancient Art of the Cyclades", held at the Katonah Museum of Art included some pieces owned by him.^{[citation needed]} He sat on the American advisory board of Christie's, the art & antiques auction house.^[28]

In November 2014, Christie's had to withdraw a prehistoric sculpture from Sardinia, valued at $800,000-$1.2m, put on auction by Steinhardt and previously put on sale by the notorious and convicted antiquities dealer Giacomo Medici. In January 2018, investigators raided Steinhardt's New York City apartment and seized a large amount of stolen antiquities which had been illegally purchased by Steinhardt.^[29]

In December 2021, after a four-year multinational investigation examining his "acquisition, possession and sale of more than 1,000 antiquities since at least 1987",^[30] Steinhardt reached an agreement with the New York County District Attorney to relinquish 180 items with an estimated value of $70 million, in exchange for the dismissal of a grand jury investigation into his collection. As part of the deal, Steinhardt was being permanently banned from acquiring new pieces. Steinhardt kept the remaining pieces that he legally purchased. The seized antiquities were slated to be returned to their proper owners in much of the Eastern Mediterranean region, as well as Bulgaria and Iraq.^{[31][32] [33]}

In a press release, District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said, "For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artifacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold, or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe."^[34] The Grand Jury Investigation Statement of Facts stated that Steinhart acquired stolen antiquiries from Giacomo Medici, Giovanni Franco Becchina, Edoardo Almagià, Robin Symes, Robert Hecht, Edward and Samuel Merrin, Robert Haber, Eugene Alexander, Fritz and Harry Bürki, Gil Chaya, Rafi Brown, Michael Ward and others. ^[35] A lawyer for Steinhardt said many of the dealers from whom he bought the artifacts "made specific representations as to the dealers’ lawful title to the items, and to their alleged provenance."^[36]

In 1967, Steinhardt met his future wife, Judy, in a car pool he organized. During one of the carpools into New York City, he mentioned the name of the grain elevator company Colorado Milling and Grain Elevator. Judy mentioned the company to her father who invested in the company and made a substantial profit after Colorado Milling was acquired by Great Western Sugar in 1968; the merged company was renamed Great Western United. Judy is the chairwoman of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts and of the American Friends of the Israel Museum.^[42] They have three children.^[43] His daughter, Sara Berman, a former journalist and parenting columnist for The New York Sun, is the president of the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School in Brooklyn.^[44]

In Sebastian Mallaby's 2010 book entitled More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite, he dedicated a chapter to Steinhardt. He described Steinhardt as a "lover of botany and a collector of exotic fauna," living in his retirement "on his country estate an hour's drive north of New York City." Mallaby included a photo of Steinhardt "dancing on his estate opposite... an elegant blue crane . . . that had taken to courting him with a graceful gavotte."^[45]

In 2001, Steinhardt published an autobiography: No Bull: My Life in and out of Markets. In this book, he addressed for the first time the question of his father, Sol Frank Steinhardt, who also went by the moniker "Red McGee." "Red" Steinhardt was convicted in 1958 on two counts of buying and selling stolen jewelry, and was sentenced to serve two 5-to-10 year terms, to run consecutively, in the New York State prison system. In his book, Steinhardt describes how his father bankrolled his early forays into the stock market by giving him envelopes stuffed with $10,000 in cash and sometimes much more than that. The book also suggests that Steinhardt's education at the Wharton School may have been paid for with illicit funds.^[46]

In 2008, he was inducted into Institutional Investors Alpha's Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame along with Julian Roberston, Kenneth Griffin, Steven A. Cohen, and others.^[47]

• List of University of Pennsylvania people