Jeffrey Yass

Political Ideology

Libertarianism

• Yass is a registered libertarian who was a board member of the Cato Institute, a libertarian Washington think tank, for decades. Yass’s Susquehanna Foundation also gave $6 million to the Cato Institute from 2021 to 2022.
• Yass is an acolyte of free market fundamentalist Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan’s favorite economist, who personally advised Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on privatizing the formerly socialist economy, to devastating results.
• Taxes, according to Yass’ former colleagues, are an obsession for the billionaire. ProPublica reported, “As one former employee put it, ‘They hate fucking taxes,’” and that “one former Susquehanna executive recalled Yass acknowledging using a trading strategy in which a main goal was not to make profitable trades, but to avoid taxes.” ProPublica also reported that “Susquehanna once petitioned the state of Pennsylvania to demand ‘a refund of taxes paid on repairs to ice machines.’”

Controversies

• In an interview, Yass said that the disparity between how the rich and the poor live in America has never been smaller: “What’s the difference between a billionaire and a guy who’s making $100,000 a year? They’re both at home watching Netflix, and they’re both on their iphones…no one’s hungry. No one’s cold. No one doesn’t have some basic health insurance.”
• Avoided at least $1 billion in taxes including through strategies that, according to ProPublica, “push legal boundaries.”
• Donated $100 million to the unaccredited, “anti-woke” University of Austin founded by infamous right wing opinion columnist and current CBS Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss.
• Donated more than $16 million to anti-Muslim and pro-Israel organizations. In 2013 to 2014, the Claws Foundation, where Yass later became a director, made a $250,000 donation to David Horowitz’s Freedom Center. Horowitz was a longtime promoter of anti-Muslim conspiracy theories who, according to The Guardian once claimed that Muslims “were a ‘protected species in this country’ and said he was ‘wait[ing] for the day when the good Muslims step forward’ at a Brooklyn College event in 2011.’”
• Despite being the 19th richest person in the world, Yass evidently sees himself as an underdog. In an interview with the Washington Post about his plans to privatize education, Yass said, “It’s David versus Goliath. I represent David.”

Obscene spending

• Yass reportedly owns an East Hampton mansion he purchased for $12.5 million in 2005, a house in Boca Raton, Florida currently valued at $2 million, and a mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut currently valued at $6 million.

Enabling

Trump Administration

Previously a “Never Trump-er,” Yass benefited when Trump intervened to stop Congress' proposed ban of a company he owns a major stake in: TikTok.The billionaire flew to Mar-a-Largo for a discussion with Trump, who shortly after came out publicly against the ban. Over the first four months of 2025, Yass donated a massive $16 million to Trump’s MAGA Inc. PAC, making him its second largest donor, and later donated at least $2.5 million to Trump’s White House ballroom. Yass’ net worth surged by over $17 billion from 2024 to 2025, thanks to his stake in TikTok’s parent company, which increased in value by 50% in only a year. When asked about his reversal on Trump, Yass said Trump “has turned into a ‘true champion’ of school choice.” Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” included a provision to implement a national school voucher program.

Dismantling Public Education

Yass is one of the billionaires leading the so-called “school choice” movement, which aims to destroy the public education system by diverting public funding into private charter schools. Ever since his idol Milton Friedman told him to focus his extracurricular efforts on “school choice,” Yass has spent hundreds of millions of dollars backing pro-”school choice” candidates. He spent $100 million in just the 2024 election cycle alone focusing on Republican-controlled states had not yet passed the most extreme versions of school privatization legislation, like Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, Illinois, North Carolina, and Florida.

Most research over the past decade shows that voucher programs have no impact or a negative impact on children’s test scores. And, voucher programs siphon resources away from public schools through downward pressure on enrollment. An Economic Policy Institute study found that a 5% decline in enrollment would cost the Cleveland school district between $12 and $31 million. Yass apparently doesn’t care. The WSJ quoted Yass as saying “If the mother or the parent wants the kid to go from one school to another, who the hell is anyone to tell them not to? I don’t care what the studies say.”

Not content to privatize just K-12 schools, Yass has also expressed interest in privatizing higher education. He made headlines when he donated $100 million to the unaccredited and right-wing affiliated University of Austin. When asked about his large donation, Yass told the Wall Street Journal: “Higher education needs competition. It is time for philanthropists to start new colleges in keeping with the way American learning institutions were founded.”