Two years ago Alexander “Alex” Soros gained control over the Open Society Foundations, succeeding his hedge fund multibillionaire father George Soros as chairman of the $25 billion New York City-based far-Left philanthropy. He’s now about to become the lucky husband of Huma Abedin, who through her longtime working relationship with Hillary Clinton, has emerged as a minor power broker within the Democratic Party. With Alex by her side, she could be a major one. As the younger Soros describes himself as “more political” than his father, this match in heaven could redefine electoral politics – for the worse.
This Saturday, June 14, Alex Soros, 39, will wed Ms. Abedin, 49, at the Soros family’s $14.5 million estate in Southampton, Long Island, N.Y. Bill and Hillary Clinton will attend, as will their daughter Chelsea and her family, along with Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Alex and Huma, who met in the fall of 2023 and became engaged last July, have spared no effort in showing the world how real their love is. But this union is about more than love. It’s about a place where radicalism, networking and money blend into one.
George Soros has five adult children. Denoted by year of birth, they are: Robert (1963), Andrea (1965), Jonathan (1970), Alexander (1985) and Gregory (1988). The first three were born to his first wife, Annaliese; the last two were born to his second wife, Susan. Since 2013 the aging patriarch, now 94, has been married to his third wife, Tamiko Bolton.
When George Soros officially named Alex board chairman of the Open Society Foundations (OSF) in June 2023 – the latter unofficially had been serving in that capacity for several months – observers were taken by surprise. The smart money was on Alex’s older half-brother, Jonathan, who had a Harvard law degree and far more experience in the financial world. But behind the scenes, Jonathan and his father were unable to resolve certain disagreements. As George told the Wall Street Journal, we “didn’t get on.” Alex, who since early 2022 had run Democracy PAC, a political action committee founded and lavishly funded by his father (see here and here) a few years earlier, got the nod instead.
As head of OSF, the younger Soros, who holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley, is committed to subsidizing progressive activism, especially via the Democratic Party. Over the last few months National Legal and Policy Center has highlighted the mission and operations of several beneficiaries, which include Disinformation Index, Indivisible, the Tides Center, Working Families, United We Dream, Women’s March, Latino Victory Project, and related spinoffs. Yet the best way to gauge Alex Soros’ long-term plans is by examining Democracy PAC and where its money goes. It’s the key to understanding why George Soros tapped his son to take over.
George Soros launched Democracy PAC in January 2019 with the intent of electing progressive candidates to public office. Though nominally nonpartisan, the rhetoric reads like a Democratic Party platform mission statement. “I established Democracy PAC,” he stated, “to support causes and candidates, regardless of political party who share a mission of protecting and strengthening the infrastructure of American democracy: voting rights and civic participation, civil rights and liberties, and the rule of law.”
George Soros was no stranger to campaign finance. During the 2016 and 2018 election cycles, he’d contributed $20.7 million and $16.7 million, respectively. But with Democracy PAC, a Super PAC, he now had a more potent vehicle. Federal election law allows individuals, corporations or unions to make unlimited donations to a Super PAC, with the stipulation that the money cannot be used to contribute to, or coordinate with, parties or candidates. Soros provided $5.1 million in seed money. By the close of April 2020, $40.5 million in donations had rolled in, $31.2 million of which was spent.
Where did that money go? The biggest chunk, a cool $10 million, went to a political action committee, Win Justice, a coalition of the Service Employees International Union, Color of Change, the Center for Community Change, and Planned Parenthood Votes. Win Justice’s stated goal at the time was mobilizing “people of color and other infrequent voters” in states that might suspend in-person voting due to COVID-19. Of course, the states did not do any such thing. Democracy PAC also contributed $7 million to the Democratic Senate Majority PAC and $5 million to Priorities USA, another left-of-center PAC.
Democracy PAC has showered plenty of funds on its beneficiaries. In the 2020 election cycle, it gave $81.5 million, a figure that fell somewhat to $67.5 million during the 2024 cycle. The PAC and George Soros’ personal donations have provided at least $40 million or more to Justice and Safety PAC and its many state and local affiliates. It was Justice and Safety PAC, founded more than a dozen years ago, that funded soft-on-crime candidates for local prosecutor. Common proposals introduced in these campaigns were refusing to charge “low-level” versions of assault, robbery and gun possession; waiving bail requirements for many crimes; and downplaying victims’ rights.
The point woman in this operation is Whitney Tymas, a Richmond, Va.-based former prosecutor. Here’s a sample of her wisdom: “If we are to reach a place of true progress, it will take the sustained efforts of local elected prosecutors across the country to rectify and reimagine their role in the criminal legal system – not just as gatekeepers, but as active catalysts for change,” she wrote in an editorial in June 2020, as the nation’s cities were convulsed in destructive rioting to avenge the death in Minneapolis of career criminal George Floyd the previous month.
As PACs account for roughly 90 percent of all prosecutor campaigns, the project delivered. Democratic Party district attorney candidates, armed with Justice and Safety PAC funds, won races in Baltimore (Marilyn Mosby) Boston (Rachael Rollins), Chicago (Kim Foxx), Los Angeles (George Gascon), Philadelphia (Larry Krasner), St. Louis (Kim Gardner), New York City (Alvin Bragg) and other many other cities. The result in every case was rising, if not soaring crime rates. Several of these D.A.s, mercifully, eventually lost a reelection race (Foxx, Gascon) or resigned in the face of evidence of corruption (Rollins). Mosby was a twofer. In January 2022 she was charged by a federal grand jury with multiple counts of fraud and would be convicted in 2023. And a half-year after the charges were levelled, she lost her bid for reelection in the primary. The tenure of these radical prosecutors reveals the damage done by “root causes” criminology.
All told, of the 25 Soros-funded candidates for prosecutor up for election or reelection on November 5, 2024, 12 lost their races. That likely was due to the fact that Justice and Safety PACs donated a mere $131,000 to their favored candidates, way down from $4 million during the 2020 election cycle. Even the Soros family knows when to pull back.
A couple of significant developments have occurred during the Alex Soros era. First, anticipating his arrival, in July 2021 the father created a companion Super PAC, Democracy PAC II. The following year he kicked in $125 million of his own money to this new entity, the bulk of a more than $150 million windfall. Not much of the money has been spent. During the 2024 election cycle, the Democracy PAC II began with $138.3 million in cash on hand and ended with $126 million.
Second, under son Alex, Democracy PAC has ramped up its funding of organizations dedicated to advancing black interests. During the 2024 election cycle, Soros-managed Super PACs gave $15 million to Black PAC, an organization that is “dedicated to fighting racism and white supremacy, protecting our voting rights and access to the ballot, and defending our neighborhoods from environmental racism, climate change, and violence.” Democracy PAC or Democracy PAC II also has contributed financial support to Black Voters Matter Action PAC, Black Men Vote and Color of Change PAC. Additionally, it has bankrolled AAPI Victory Fund (Asian) and Somos PAC (Hispanic).
Third, under Alex Soros’ leadership, Democracy PAC has become an adjunct to the Democratic Party. During the 2024 election cycle, three major pro-Democrat PACs – Senate Majority PAC, House Majority PAC and Future Forward PAC – received a combined $24.5 million from Democracy PAC, a substantial increase from the 2020 election cycle figure of $17.5 million. Alex has been a heavy financial contributor to the party. He donated at least $5 million to Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign, describing her as “the best and most qualified candidate” after President Biden had dropped out of the race. That was a good deal more than the $720,000 he gave to the Biden Victory Fund in 2020.
It is fair to say, then, that when Alex Soros states that he is “more political” than his father, he’s not referring to substantive political differences so much as his own desire for greater integration of his PACs and the Open Society Foundations into the political process. He wants to be a player in all aspects of campaigning, governing and networking. To do this, he’s going to need some help from someone highly familiar with how Washington works. That’s where the other half of the marriage comes into play.
Huma Abedin’s rise has been calculated and, one must admit, skillful. It helps to have had an employer, mentor and friend in Hillary Clinton, who is probably better networked more than any Democrat in the country this side of her husband and Barack Obama. Of Indian and Pakistani descent, Huma was born in Kalamazoo, Mich., but grew up in Saudi Arabia, where her parents were professors at the University of Jeddah. Determined to be a journalist, she found work as an intern in the Clinton White House. She eventually did stints as Mrs. Clinton’s personal aide in the latter’s victorious 2000 U.S. Senate campaign in New York; deputy chief of staff to Mrs. Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state during President Obama’s first term; a consultant to Teneo Holdings, run by former Bill Clinton presidential aide Douglas Band; and a couple of other jobs. Indeed, having four sources of employment, as was the case during June 2012-February 2013, arguably represented a conflict of interest. Indeed, in July 2015 Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley released information from a State Department Inspector General’s report indicating that she was overpaid by nearly $10,000 for unused leave time when she left government service.
Huma Abedin’s did not get to see her political soulmate Hillary Clinton become president, but she revealed her true political leanings not long into Donald Trump’s first presidency. When Trump in January 2017 issued an executive order imposing a 90-day ban on travel to the United Stated by people from selected countries on the terrorist watch list, most of them Muslim (and those countries deserved to be on that list!), Abedin sent out an email to followers in which she called herself a “proud Muslim” and denounced the Trump security measure as “literally (writing) racism into our law books.” The comment was preposterous. The order had nothing to do with race and everything to do with national security. Moreover, if this were a “Muslim ban,” as the press often phrased it, President Trump would have applied the ban to the dozens of Islamic countries the world over.
On the domestic front, Abedin’s first husband, former Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and later, candidate for New York City mayor, provided the drama – and potential opportunities for prosecutors. Married in July 2010, this Jewish-Muslim power couple (!) on the surface had a good thing going, especially when their son was born in December 2011. But it wasn’t quite so rosy. Over a half-year earlier, on May 27, 2011, Rep. Weiner used his public Twitter account to send a racy message to a woman with a link that allegedly contained an explicit photo of his wiener. After several days of denying he was the culprit, he held a press conference to admit that he indeed was. Shortly thereafter, he resigned.
Old habits would die hard. During the 2013 New York mayoral race, he “sexted” another woman. In August 2016, he did it again with still another woman. The latest one prompted Huma to file for separation the next day. Worse was yet to come. The next month, claims surfaced in the media that he’d sent an explicit sex message and photo to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. Enticing a minor proved too much for federal agents, which launched an investigation that led to the former congressman’s surrender to the FBI in May 2017 and sentencing that September to 21 months in prison, plus three years of supervision.
Indirectly, the case likely cost Huma Abedin an upward career move. Eleven days before the 2016 presidential election, then-FBI director James Comey reopened the investigation, part of a larger probe into Mrs. Clinton’s possible misuse of a private email server when she was secretary of state, a move Hillary claims to this day cost her the election. The probe concluded that neither Weiner nor Abedin had committed a crime in their handling of emails found on the husband’s laptop, some of which were classified. Still, she could be said to have committed an ethical lapse. Responding to a lawsuit by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, the State Department in December 2017 released a number of those emails.
The Weiner-Abedin marriage would stumble along for years, oscillating between reconciliation and divorce. Finally, early this May, the couple finalized their divorce. With Huma’s marriage to Alex Soros only weeks away, this was a close call. She’s hoping this union will work out.
All political marriages on some level are business propositions. As Alex Soros and Huma Abedin have national and global ambitions, the desire for power is more evident. Not to be too cynical, but Soros has the cash and Abedin wants to be a political kingmaker. It’s ironic that the bride is a Muslim, while Soros, like Weiner, is Jewish. Back in Saudi Arabia, she could face death even for dating a Jew. But such considerations in their world can be overlooked. Ambition, like love, all too often is blind.
Carl F. Horowitz is an NLPC senior fellow.
photo credit: Instagram/Alex Soros
