• Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013
• Net worth is estimated at $77 billion by Forbes
The early years
Michael Bloomberg was born on February 14, 1942 in Massachusetts, his father worked as an accountant in a dairy, his mother was a secretary. He studied mechanical engineering at the renowned Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, then he attended Harvard University, which he graduated in 1966 with a Master of Business Administration. He first took a job at the New York investment bank Salomon Brothers, where Bloomberg was able to rise to partner. When Phibro bought the bank in 1981, Bloomberg was fired and sold his $10 million partnership stake, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. This capital enabled Bloomberg to lay the foundation for its continued success.
entrepreneurial career
According to Forbes magazine, Bloomberg founded his own company that same year, which was then known as Innovative Market Systems. It was a financial information service that delivered financial information such as real-time quotes, market data and other calculations to customers through Bloomberg’s customized user terminal. The financial information service is still widely used today, but nowadays the interface can not only be accessed on a Bloomberg terminal, but you can access the Bloomberg service via the Internet and almost any device. Bloomberg continued to expand his company, adding a radio and television station, a financial news service and a legal information service, among other things. According to the company, Bloomberg now employs more than 19,000 people in 176 offices. The company’s headquarters are in the 250-meter-tall Bloomberg Tower in Midtown Manhattan. Forbes estimates annual sales at over $12 billion.
politically engaged
Bloomberg, who until then had always been associated with the Democratic Party according to Who’s Who, changed sides shortly before New York City’s 2001 mayoral election and joined the Republican Party. Bloomberg, which was initially behind in the polls, won the election at the beginning of November 2001, shortly after the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. As mayor, he campaigned for rapid reconstruction, education, health and safety, among other things. Under him, for example, a wide-ranging smoking ban was issued and investments were made in the school system. According to Bloomberg’s administration, it opened more than 650 new schools and high school graduation rates rose 42 percent. In 2008, as his second term drew to a close, the term limit was raised from two to three, allowing Bloomberg to run for mayor a third time after 2005. At the end of his third term in office, crime was down 32 percent from 2001, despite New York City’s population increasing by nearly 500,000, according to Bloomberg.
Charity in focus
After his third term in office, Bloomberg took over the management of Bloomberg LP, which had been given up in the meantime. He was also a signatory to the Giving Pledge for road safety and health protection, for example through campaigns against tobacco smoking. Bloomberg is also taking action against coal-fired power plants in the name of climate protection and is campaigning for stricter gun laws in the United States. In November 2019, Bloomberg announced that it would run as the Democratic Party candidate in the following year’s presidential election. After Bloomberg invested more than $500 million in his campaign but did not see the desired success in the Democratic Party primaries, he withdrew his candidacy after Super Tuesday in early March 2020, US news outlets consistently reported. He spoke out in favor of the eventual winner of the presidential election, Joe Biden. Currently, Bloomberg chairs the Defense Innovation Panel of the United States Department of Defense, according to information from the US Department of Defense. Established in 2016, the committee advises the Department of Defense on cultural, technical, and operational matters to prepare the US armed forces for future challenges.
Editorial office finanzen.net
Image sources: lev radin / Shutterstock.com