Open Society Foundations, one of the world’s most prominent philanthropic networks, is gutting its staff, the organization said on Friday. Founded by billionaire George Soros, the group currently employs about 800 people globally; at least 40 percent of those workers will soon be out of jobs.
Earlier this month, Soros generated headlines after announcing that he was ceding control of Open Society to his 37-year-old son Alexander. The younger Soros quickly declared that he planned to chart a new course—while maintaining his father’s core liberal values—telling The Wall Street Journal that he was “more political” than his dad.
Open Society issued a vague press release on Friday describing “significant changes to the Foundations’ operating model” it planned to implement “in the coming months” in an effort to become more nimble. A spokesperson for the group told The Daily Beast in an email that those changes would entail significant layoffs.
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“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,” the spokesperson added.
Samuel Brunson, who researches nonprofits at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, said the downsizing is not altogether surprising given that Alexander Soros may “have different priorities and goals” than his father. It’s still too early to determine what, if anything, the cuts mean for the charitable sector at large, Brunson continued.
News of the layoffs was earlier reported by Bloomberg.
Open Society Origin Story
George Soros, 92, launched a predecessor to Open Society in his native Hungary in 1984, with the initial goal of “encouraging dissent behind the Iron Curtain.” Over time, the foundation morphed into a much larger apparatus seeking to promote democratization, education, public health, and the arts. The group has disbursed more than $19 billion in grants over its lifetime, it says.
Soros spent a portion of his teenage years living under Nazi occupation; he and his family were Jewish and survived by obtaining “false identity papers,” according to an account of his childhood published by Open Society. He emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1947, where he took jobs as nightclub server and railway porter, before landing in the United States in 1956.
Soros made his fortune as a hedge fund manager; in 1992 he famously and controversially made an enormous profit (said to be in the realm of $1 billion) by betting against the British pound, which allegedly helped spark the financial crisis known as “Black Wednesday.” He was later dubbed “the man who broke the Bank of England.”
As his influence has grown, Soros has frequently been the target of conspiracy theories and antisemitic attacks. “The fact that I have become involved in so many different issues, and have taken controversial positions, is now actually working against me,” he said in a 2020 documentary.
According to Brunson, Open Society’s influence is “pretty significant, but [also] probably less significant than its given credit (or blame) for. Soros has done a lot to preserve democracy, but he’s been blamed for every ill that the Right wants a bogeyman for.”
