Paul Singer

Paul Singer is the founder and co-CEO of Elliott Management Corporation, the hedge fund he founded in 1977 with $1.3 million and built into one of the world's largest and most feared activist investment firms, managing more than $55 billion in assets. Born August 22, 1944, in New York City, Singer earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester before graduating from Harvard Law School in 1969. His career in investment management established Elliott as synonymous with aggressive, unconventional strategy — including its pursuit of sovereign debt from Argentina and its protracted battle over NML Capital — and built Singer into one of the most formidable and consequential Republican mega-donors of the past three decades.

Singer's pro-Israel engagement is structural and long-standing. He is a co-founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition and a major donor to AIPAC, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and a range of Jewish communal organizations. His Paul E. Singer Foundation has donated more than $100 million to Jewish and Israeli causes, with particular emphasis on Jewish educational institutions and organizations combating antisemitism. Singer co-founded the Start-Up Nation Roundtable — the premier forum connecting American business and investment leaders with Israel's technology ecosystem — alongside author Dan Senor and Israeli entrepreneur Saul Singer, transforming what could have been symbolic philanthropic support into a sustained capital bridge between American finance and Israeli innovation. His Elliott Management portfolio has included Israeli technology investments, and his advocacy for expanding American venture capital attention to Israel's startup sector has produced measurable capital flows.

Singer became one of the first major Republican donors to publicly support same-sex marriage (in 2012), a position driven in part by his son Andrew Singer being gay — demonstrating that Singer's political giving is rooted in principle rather than pure ideological conformity. His 2016 cycle giving exceeded $35 million in Republican causes. Post-2020, Singer's giving shifted toward a range of candidates and causes across the Republican spectrum with consistent attachment to two priorities: American strength and Israeli security. At Rank 16, Singer represents the Republican Jewish donor whose contribution is not merely financial but architectural — he built the institutions through which American finance and Israeli economic vitality reinforce each other.