President Donald Trump picked Ben Black—the son of billionaire Leon Black—to lead the little-known U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, making the pick after Black wrote a Substack post outlining his ideas for sourcing money for the foreign development agency from the embattled U.S. Agency for International Development targeted by Trump’s administration.
Ben Black, founder of Fortinbras Enterprises, participates in a panel discussion during the Milken ... [+]
Trump nominated Black as the CEO of the foreign development agency on Jan. 31, selecting Black to lead the multi-billion-dollar budget agency formed during Trump’s first term that is tasked with making investments in foreign countries.
In a Substack essay published Jan. 10 and co-authored with tech entrepreneur and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, Black criticized the U.S. Agency for International Development—before the Trump administration slashed its workforce and budget—saying “much of” the humanitarian agency’s roughly $40 billion budget should be shifted to the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.
Black also scrutinized the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation under President Joe Biden and argued the former administration committed agency funds to short-term, “virtue-signaling” projects, citing green energy projects it recently invested in.
Black suggested the foreign development agency could invest in ports and mines in Greenland, which Trump has sought to purchase, saying American infrastructure, mining and shipping companies could become involved in a partnership that increases American natural resources.
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Black is the son of Leon Black, cofounder of private equity behemoth Apollo Global Management, who had an estimated net worth of $15.9 billion Wednesday afternoon, according to Forbes’ estimates, making him the 134th-wealthiest person in the world. The billionaire investor still owned a roughly 14% stake in Apollo as of last year, according to Bloomberg.
Black, 40, started his professional career as an analyst for Goldman Sachs in 2007, according to his LinkedIn profile. The businessman later worked as an associate for Apollo Global Management, the publicly traded asset management firm co-founded by his father. Black is now the founder of his own investment firm, Fortinbras Enterprises, which invests in small and mid-market businesses and owns $122 million in assets, according to The New York Times. Black is also the CEO and director of Osiris Acquisition Corp., a blank check company.
Black has degrees in law and business from Harvard University, a history degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s in taxation from New York University, the latter of which he achieved in 2020, according to his LinkedIn.
No, according to unnamed people familiar with the process who told the Times the pick came as a surprise given Black’s “limited foreign policy and legislative experience.”
Ben Black’s father, Leon, is a billionaire private equity investor who co-founded Apollo in 1990 with fellow billionaires Joshua Harris and Marc Rowan. The firm went public in 2011 and now has an $84 billion market capitalization, with Leon still owning a roughly 14% stake. Leon found himself in hot water in 2021, when Apollo’s board found he paid late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein $158 million for financial services. He stepped down as the firm’s CEO shortly after. In 2023, the billionaire also agreed to pay the U.S. Virgin Islands $62.5 million in exchange for being excluded from potential claims linked to the territory’s investigation into Epstein.
Black, like Trump, has blasted the U.S. Agency for International Development and scrutinized how the Biden administration conducted foreign spending. Black’s wish to shift USAID’s funding to the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation puts even more pressure on the former agency, which has its annual appropriations controlled by Congress. USAID, which supports things like agricultural programs and disease surveillance in other countries, had its funding pulled by the Trump administration, which was ordered this month to temporarily restore USAID funding and conduct a review of each of the agency’s programs before deciding what should be cut. USAID’s roughly $40 billion budget in fiscal year 2023 accounted for less than 1% of the federal budget, according to multiple outlets.