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Jeff Yass

Jeffrey S. Yass (born 1958) is an American billionaire businessman. According to Forbes, Yass had a net worth of $28.5 billion in 2023.

He is the co-founder and managing director of the Philadelphia-based trading and technology firm Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and a major investor in TikTok. In 2002, he joined the executive advisory council of the Cato Institute.

As of March 2024, he is the largest donor in the 2024 US election cycle, having donated $46 million to Republican groups and campaigns, primarily to rivals of Donald Trump. After Yass and Trump met in March 2024, Trump went from supporting a ban on TikTok to opposing a ban. At the same time, Yass's SIG bought a substantial share in Trump's company Truth Social, providing Trump with a massive influx of money at a time when he faced mountainous legal expenses.

According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Yass is a major supporter of Israeli right-wing think tanks.

Early life

Yass was born in 1958 in Queens, New York City, and grew up there in a middle-class Jewish family. He is the son of Gerald Yass, and his "childhood sweetheart" Sybil, who was at his bar mitzvah. He has a sister, Carole.

Gerald Yass died on January 6, 2024, aged 94, in Boca Raton, Florida (his wife Syblil pre-deceased him).

Yass was educated at public schools in Queens. He earned a B.S. in mathematics and economics from Binghamton University. He pursued graduate studies in economics at New York University, but did not graduate.

Career

While at the State University of New York at Binghamton in the 1970s, Yass and five fellow students became friends and later co-founded Susquehanna International Group (SIG), the largest trader of liquid stocks in the US. In the 1970s and early 1980s, before establishing his trading firm, Yass was a professional gambler, winning sums from poker and horse betting.

The billionaire trader Israel Englander sponsored Yass for a seat on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and SIG was initially run from an office at the Exchange. His father, Gerald Yass, also helped to found the company. As of 2021, SIG generates almost one-tenth of the market making trade volume in exchange-traded funds.

Political activities

Yass became a member of the board of directors of the libertarian Cato Institute in 2002 and now is a member of the executive advisory council.

Yass has contributed significant sums to political efforts, including campaigns for election denying candidates. In 2015, Yass donated $2.3 million to a super PAC supporting Rand Paul's presidential candidacy. In 2018 he donated $3.8 million to the Club for Growth, and $20.7 million in 2020.

Yass and his wife, Janine Coslett, support school choice, with Coslett writing a 2017 opinion piece for The Washington Examiner in support of then-incoming Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos's views at school choice. In November 2021, he donated $5 million to the School Freedom Fund, a PAC that runs ads for Republican candidates running in the 2022 election cycle nationwide. From 2010 to 2022, Yass contributed $41.7 million to Students First political action committee; Yass co-founded the PAC, which supports the school choice movement.

In the 2020 election cycle, Yass was one of the ten largest political donors in the United States. During that cycle, Yass donated $25.3 million, all to Republican candidates. He is registered as a member of the Libertarian Party.

During the 2022 primary elections, Yass spent at least $18 million, including contributions in support of Republican Bill McSwain, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor of Pennsylvania.

In March 2021, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Jeff Yass and Arthur Dantchik were behind a large portion of the donations to the Kohelet Policy Forum in Israel.

In September 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that Yass, an investor in TikTok's parent firm ByteDance, is a major donor to US politicians who have opposed restrictions on TikTok.

Wealth and taxes

As of 2022–2023, Yass was the richest resident of Pennsylvania.

In 2022, an investigation by ProPublica, based on a review of tax returns it obtained, court documents, and securities filings, found that Yass engaged in tax avoidance, through Susquehanna trading strategies that "push legal boundaries" to reduce tax liability. ProPublica estimated "that if Yass' tax returns had resembled those of his competitors" (specifically, Ken Griffin, John Overdeck, and David Siegel), Yass "would have paid $1 billion more in federal income taxes" during the period 2013 to 2018.

Recognition

In 2001, Yass appeared as one of 76 Revolutionary Minds in Philadelphia magazine.

Personal life

Yass is married to Janine Coslett. They have lived in Haverford in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, for some years. They have four children, two sons and two daughters.

Philanthropy

In December 2001, following the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, he announced a donation to the charitable fund established by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to assist the victims. He has supported Save the Children, "Spirit of Golf Foundation", People's Emergency Center Families First building, and the Franklin Institute's Franklin Family Funfest Committee.

Jeff and Janine Yass founded the Yass Prize for Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding, and Permissionless (STOP) education, which was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic. This initiative aims to recognize and support innovative, non-traditional education models. In 2022, the Yass Prize awarded over $20 million, including a $1 million grand prize to the Arizona Autism Charter Schools for their individualized learning programs.