The Many Lives of Michael Bloomberg

by Eleanor Randolph

  Bloomberg’s army retaliated with videos and other proof that Trump had been full of praise for their man as he left city hall. But the disturbing news was not Trump’s personal attack. It was that Michael Bloomberg, the richest member of that exclusive club of rich New Yorkers, business executives, politicians, and philanthropists, had done his best to warn Americans about somebody who claimed he was in their peer group. Bloomberg and his crowd feared that Trump was a fraud who would wreck the country the way he had wrecked so many of his own businesses.

  A few weeks after the election, Trump sent word through Bloomberg’s associates that he would accept a phone call from his fellow New Yorker. Bloomberg told friends that when he called, he and the president figured they had attacked each other to a draw. Mostly, the president had asked for advice about people he should hire, Bloomberg recalled. He had resisted naming names. But he said he had counseled Trump to hire people smarter than himself, which Bloomberg’s supporters decided could not be all that difficult.29

  Publicly, Bloomberg described the conversation as cordial. He told the new president, “Look, Donald, you don’t know anything about this job,” adding that Trump “had never run anything.” Bloomberg explained, “Trump is not a business guy. He’s a real estate salesman.” It was a business executive’s takedown, and Bloomberg added that during that call he tried to warn the president-elect that he could not change the entire government from the Oval Office. He said he told Trump, “You can’t walk away from how our government has developed over 100, 200 years and say it’s all bullshit.”30

  If there was a truce, it was soon over. Bloomberg used his own media vehicle to chastise Trump publicly—saying he looked “weak and fearful” when he fired FBI director James Comey for his handling of the Russia probe.31 The big tax windfall for the wealthy and the corporations? Bloomberg called it “a trillion-dollar blunder” and wrote that “we don’t need the money.” Corporations were sitting on $2.3 trillion in cash already, and the real worry was that Republicans would take aim at entitlements.32, 33 And he worried about the loss of global trade, the unraveling of environmental protections, and the separation of children at the border. “This is not who we are as a nation,” he wrote.34 The sniping shifted to a full-frontal assault after Trump backed out of the Paris accords, and Bloomberg began organizing cities, states, and businesses to veto Trump’s decision. (See chapter 28.)

  * * *

  But Bloomberg was not done. In an entirely new kind of challenge to Trump’s pinched view of how the world worked, in 2017 Bloomberg gathered some of the biggest names in business and government from around the world to talk about global issues. It was Bloomberg’s Davos, New York City’s own version of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland where powerful people had come together for more than forty-five years, mostly to discuss the ways to guide the world’s economy. (He would later add an Asian version in Singapore.)

  For the first of what would turn out to be an annual event, scheduled conveniently at the same time as the 2017 United Nations General Assembly, Bloomberg chose the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan for what would be called the Bloomberg Global Business Forum.

  The fabled Oak Room, settings for the movies North by Northwest and Arthur, among others, became a media center. The lavish Palm Court and tearoom changed into a kind of café and schmoozing hall. A ballroom was small enough to give the crowd a little intimacy, and there were assorted other side rooms for cozy meetings and backroom conferences. For most, the irony was not missed—Trump had bought the Plaza in 1988 for $390 million and was forced to sell it seven years later at a loss to cover his debts.35 The former mayor was taking on the president in the very splendor that Trump had once craved but couldn’t manage to keep.

  For the first session, the stellar guest list included Jim Yong Kim, head of the World Bank, and Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Emmanuel Macron, president of France; Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada; and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, president of Turkey, all spoke in forums for about several hundred guests (and a small flock of journalists).

  The tech stars were there, of course. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, spoke, as did Jack Ma, head of the massive e-commerce company Alibaba. Fellow billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates roamed the halls. Henry Kissinger spoke to one small group, accompanied by former British prime minister Tony Blair. The rococo rooms of the Plaza were filled with representatives from the United Nation, plus executives from more than 250 companies from around the world.

  It was such an elaborate event that BuzzFeed declared Michael Bloomberg president of America’s “government-in-exile.”36

  * * *

  A year later, Bloomberg was ready to spend even more money challenging Trump and his disastrous policies in the midterm elections. He became one of the top donors in 2018, and his mission was to provide a buffer against Trump’s worst instincts by getting rid of the president’s fawning lackeys in the Republican Party. The Adelsons of Las Vegas were the top Republican contributors in 2018, donating $123 million in political action funds. Bloomberg came in second with nearly $93 million (or $120 million according to his staff), all of it to Democrats this time.37

  Bloomberg had not always been quite so generous. He gave out about $40 million in 2014 and $60 million in 2016, when two-thirds of his money went to Democrats and the rest to friendly Republicans, according to Howard Wolfson, treasurer of the Bloomberg PAC.38 But in 2018, Bloomberg’s experts did an “enormous amount of polling” and ran ads mostly aimed at suburban districts, Wolfson said. Some voters were interested in how the new tax bill was hurting them, limiting write-offs for home mortgages. Many worried about their health care. Some were angry about the guns—Bloomberg spent $5 million to help Lucy McBath win a congressional seat in Georgia after her son was shot and killed for playing his music too loud at a gas station. They bought the television ads for these races, but they also went digital, “because Mike thought in 2016 the Democrats got really outplayed online,” Wolfson added.39

  On the weekend before the election, Bloomberg appeared in another $5 million ad, which ran on CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday night and again on Monday, the day before the election. The two-minute spot featured Bloomberg, still in a telltale nonpartisan purple tie, explaining that he was normally not a party man. But this time, he urged voters to vote Democratic because “we must send a signal to Republicans in Washington that they have failed to lead, failed to find solutions and failed to bring us together.”40 Even though he lost a few, Bloomberg’s help winning twenty-one of twenty-five House races meant that he was now more fully engaged in the political battlefield. And he was ready to spend more, many millions more.

  Big money would not be new to politics after the Supreme Court decided in 2010 to throw out congressional limits on corporate spending.41 As expected, their decision that Citizens United could spend freely if ads were independent of any campaign soon unleashed others to spend lavishly, mostly in ways that helped Republicans. With Bloomberg using his own funds to aid Democrats (independently, of course), the playing field was almost level, giving good-government types a new hope that Congress would try to limit this deluge.

  Although Bloomberg had plans to give out about $10 billion of his fortune by 2019, he still had plenty to spare. On the same day he announced that he would not run in 2020, Forbes came out with its latest billionaires ranking. Bloomberg, who had started out with nothing but a supportive family and a good education, was now the ninth-richest person in the world with a net worth of $55 billion. (Donald Trump, who inherited his start-up wealth starting as a toddler,42 had moved down 51 spots to 715th place with $3.1 billion.)43

  Months before the 2020 elections, Bloomberg had already vowed to use another $500 million to fight climate change and bring a “clean energy economy” to America. He promised to phase out every coal-fired power plant in the country by 2030 and to fight in the courts and support local politicians working to convert to 100 percent clean, renewable energy. And finally,
he would use his money, and his clout to elect national politicians who agreed with his mission. The message would be simple, he said, “face reality on climate change or face the music on election day.”44

  Bloomberg and his political team would also spend the pre-election months figuring out precisely how to defeat America’s polluter in chief, President Donald Trump. At the same time, they were looking at ways to replace local and national politicians under the thumb of the National Rifle Association or those who failed to see the value of immigration in America. It would not be simply television ads. The battleground had moved onto cell phones and into social media, and Bloomberg’s team was prepared to help Democrats match the formidable high-tech operation being built by the Trump campaign. As a New York Observer headline suggested, if he succeeded, Bloomberg would be the political world’s “Obi-Wan Kenobi,”45 the legendary Star Wars guru who knew how to use the forces (or the Force) to guide the universe.

  To neutralize damage done by President Trump and his political mob, Bloomberg faced a daunting task. But changing much of Wall Street with a new computer and becoming a billionaire had been a massive undertaking. Running New York City was a colossal job, managed expertly over a dozen years. His philanthropy was unusually pointed and inventive as he became one of the most generous billionaires in the country. Now he was ready for another extravagant challenge—to counter some of Washington’s worst political and policy mistakes, even if he had to do it from outside the White House.

  1 Michael Bloomberg’s personal mission was to use his vast wealth and considerable energies to improve the health of the earth and its people. That meant fighting not only guns, obesity, traffic deaths, and smoking—among the worst plagues of his time—but also combatting the ignorance about climate change. Here, a grim Mayor Bloomberg walks through a once lovely section of Queens ravaged by the “perfect storm,” Hurricane Sandy in 2012, that killed forty-three New Yorkers and caused $70 billion in damages. Climate change had already begun to make its mark, even on New York City.

  2 Born in Boston, Mike Bloomberg grew up in the modest, comfortable suburb of Medford. After some trouble buying a house in an area that once forbade Jews, this strong family found a comfortable and accepting place in this community. Even on a tricycle, young Mike was a handful by most accounts, but this very lucky kid grew up with a doting father and a strong mother. He liked to collect snakes from a nearby wood.

  3 The Bloomberg family portrait—his mother, “Lottie,” who lived to be one hundred and two, stayed at home, cooked kosher, and kept the family running smoothly. Mike’s father, William, was an accountant who made about $6,000 a year and gave an annual contribution to the NAACP, a family tradition mentioned later when his son gave out billions. Mike looms at the left, his sister Marjorie at the right.

  4 Once Bloomberg decided he wanted to be a Boy Scout, he wanted to be the top Boy Scout. At age twelve, he became one of the youngest Eagle Scouts in the country—even managing to get the badge required from his school for being a good citizen (and not Mr. Mischief). The Jewish youth sold Christmas wreaths to earn enough to go to camp, where he loved food that would never touch his mother’s table.

  5 Described as “argumentative” by his high school classmates, Bloomberg emerged as a leader at Johns Hopkins where he received an engineering degree and organized his fraternity house and much of his senior class. Here he is helping with balloting for a student council race “with customary aplomb,” as yearbook writers would add.

  6 Michael Bloomberg, second from right (in white socks), became president of his senior class. His leadership qualities (and good grades after his father suddenly died in 1963) helped him go on to Harvard Business School to get a masters in business administration. It was the Vietnam era, but he was not a marcher, and he did not go into the military—rejected for having flat feet. Instead, he went to Wall Street.

  7 Bloomberg, the Harvard MBA, would start his Wall Street career counting stock and bond certificates in a sweaty bank vault at Salomon Brothers & Hutzler. He moved up slowly, and here he is a year later—still a minion, but already offering advice to his elders in a way that would eventually get him into trouble.

  8 Bloomberg steadily moved up. He became a partner in the firm in 1972, and here he is in 1975, a star on Wall Street. He came in early and worked late so that he could often get a ride home with John Gutfreund, right, the chairman of Salomon Brothers. Bloomberg was known in this era for telling Gutfreund and others they needed to update their computer systems.

  9 Mike Bloomberg, fired from Salomon and given a $10 million payout, convinced these three colleagues to help start a new computer system for Wall Street. Bloomberg, at left, is drinking his ever-present cup of coffee. With him as they launch the company in 1982 are Charles Zegar, Thomas Secunda, and Duncan MacMillan. All four would become members of the three comma club—i.e. billionaires.

  10 Nearly a decade after starting his company, Bloomberg and former Wall Street Journal reporter Matthew Winkler start Bloomberg News. Winkler, his famous temper barely-camouflaged with a bow tie, would create a massive, worldwide news operation, widely respected for covering finance. He was replaced in 2015 by smooth and erudite British editor John Micklethwait.

  11 After nearly two decades in business, Bloomberg, the billionaire, wanted a new adventure. The newly-declared Republican candidate for mayor of New York City took to the streets while he spent millions on political ads. Bloomberg’s uphill race would shift in his favor after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

  12 Former mayor Ed Koch endorsed Bloomberg and helped introduce him to the city beyond Wall Street. Even with help, however, the candidate (still in his tie) needed a fork to spread extras on his hot dog.

  13 Mayor Rudy Giuliani finally endorsed Bloomberg shortly before the election in 2001. At the time, Giuliani had infuriated minorities and unions, but he had also reduced crime and rallied the city after September 11. Bloomberg looks a little embarrassed here, as if he knows Giuliani will later become a front man for President Trump.

  14 With Bloomberg’s mother at his side and his daughter Georgina watching, the chief judge of New York’s Court of Appeals, Judith Kaye, swears the new mayor into an office he will eventually hold for twelve years. He won reelection in 2005, but invited controversy for engineering a third term after the Great Recession of 2008.

  15 Patti Harris, Bloomberg’s top adviser, will become first deputy mayor for all twelve years. Hired as his assistant at his company years before he became mayor, she would help guide his political campaigns, his city, and his philanthropy. She became his prime confidante and “run it by Patti” was often the first order of business in the Bloomberg universe.

  16 Early in Bloomberg’s administration, this looked like a love match—Randi Weingarten, head of the NYC teachers union, gives a congratulatory hug to the new mayor. They would cross swords many times as Bloomberg tried to revolutionize public schools, but ultimately this duo would work together to promote increases in teacher pay.

  17 Bloomberg tried to erase the raw feelings between the African American community and Giuliani’s City Hall. Here he meets with Al Sharpton at a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in 2004. Gifford Miller, city council speaker, is at the mayor’s left side, and a future political opponent, then comptroller, William Thompson watches warily.

  18 After a few years and too many polls showing he was extremely unpopular—a tax increase didn’t help—the mayor’s team wanted him to show voters he was an ordinary guy. Opening fifty-three city pools on a hot June day would help, and, to the surprise of some, Bloomberg took an enthusiastic leap.

  19 Big name golfers line up for Joe Torre’s Safe At Home Foundation golf tournament in 2008 to help kids from violent homes. From left: former mayor Rudy Giuliani, club owner and budding politician Donald Trump, Mayor Bloomberg, President Bill Clinton, former Yankees manager Joe Torre, and comedian Billy Crystal.

  20 Bloomberg and Susan Meyer wed in 1976, had two daughters—Emma, on t
he far left, and Georgina, on the right. They divorced in 1993 but remained on good terms. The former Mrs. Bloomberg even worked on his campaigns. Here he helps her celebrate in 2003 as the American Cancer Society’s “Mother of the Year.”

  21 In his most important speech as mayor, Bloomberg defended the right of Muslims in 2010 to build a community center a few blocks away from the World Trade Center site. With the Statue of Liberty pointedly over his shoulder, he rebuffed conservatives and even many in the Jewish community by saying that on September 11, as police and fire officials rushed into the burning buildings to save people, “not one of them asked, ‘What God do you pray to? What beliefs do you hold?’ ”

  22 Mayor Bloomberg began making a name for himself as a fierce enemy of the National Rifle Association, and he was part of an intense effort to cut back the illegal weaponry coming into the city. Here he and police commissioner Ray Kelly (right) and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance (left) announce the indictment of sixteen gun traffickers. Soon, however, the city’s overuse of stop-and-frisk was ruled unconstitutional, even as Bloomberg and Kelly insisted they were not targeting blacks and Hispanics, they were going to high-crime neighborhoods to find illegal guns.