George Soros’s philanthropic foundation is slashing its workforce almost in half just weeks after his millennial and “more political” son took the reins of the multibillion-dollar empire.
Open Society Foundations, which was founded by the billionaire investor in 1979, announced on Friday that it would be making “significant changes” to its operating model over the coming months.
It comes after Alexander Soros, George Soros’s fourth child, was named chair of the organization’s board of directors in December, and just one month after he inherited complete control of the foundation from his father.
The move handed 37-year-old Alexander Soros huge financial responsibility: Open Society controls most of the assets under the management of Soros’s multibillion-dollar family office. In 2021, it allocated more than $400 million to organizations in the U.S. alone.
The organization—which donates money to various causes including climate change and equality initiatives—confirmed to Fortune in an emailed statement on Monday that these changes included the “difficult decision” to cut almost half of its workforce.
“The Board has directed Open Society’s senior leadership to proceed with the work necessary to implement this new approach in accordance with local requirements and obligations to our employees and representatives,” a spokesperson said.
“We anticipate that implementing the proposed new model would involve further streamlining of our current organization, redesign and retooling of our existing operations, and a substantial reduction in headcount of no less than 40% globally.”
The New York–headquartered foundation has more than 1,000 employees, according to global jobs site Glassdoor. However, it has been widely reported that Open Society currently employs closer to 800 people.
In its statement on Friday, the Open Society said the layoffs and other operational changes would maximize its ability to help “counter the forces currently threatening open and free societies.”
“The Board expects that this new model will create a culture of ‘strategic opportunism’ at the Foundations and among the grantees they support,” the organization said. “This proposed new model [will] favor both longer-term ‘patient capital’ approaches as well as tactical short-term needs.”
Foundation’s new ‘more political’ leader
Open Society has long been a supporter of liberal causes, with its founder renowned for making huge donations to support left-leaning initiatives.
Soros, who is now 92 years old and has a net worth of around $7.2 billion, is a known supporter of the Democratic Party and liberal movements, which has seen him become a longstanding political target of the extreme right and landed him at the center of several unfounded conspiracy theories.
He founded the Quantum Fund—which went on to become the world’s biggest hedge fund—in the 1970s, converting it into a family office in 2011 after returning less than $1 billion of its $25 billion in assets under management to outside investors.
According to Bloomberg, the family office had around $28 billion in assets under management in early 2022.
Alexander Soros, a graduate of New York University and the University of California, Berkeley, told the Wall Street Journal last month that he is “more political” than his father, a native Hungarian whose Jewish family disguised its identity under Nazi occupation and who has given away more than $32 billion of his personal fortune.
He added that under his leadership, Open Society Foundations would boost its support for democracy as well as abortion and voting rights, and that he intended to continue funding liberal causes for “as long as the other side is doing it.”
