Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman is planning to dedicate a “substantial majority” of his $47.8 billion fortune to philanthropic endeavors, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence and education, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The move signals a significant expansion of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Foundation, which currently holds $65 million in assets.
Schwarzman, 78, co-founded Blackstone in 1985, building it into one of the world’s largest asset management firms with over $1.3 trillion in assets under management. The firm’s portfolio spans real estate, private credit and infrastructure. The planned transfer of wealth, expected upon his death, would position Schwarzman’s foundation among the largest globally, potentially rivaling the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ($83.3 billion) and the Wellcome Trust ($47 billion).
The foundation recently appointed an executive director to oversee the anticipated growth, The Wall Street Journal reported. Schwarzman’s philanthropic interests were publicly articulated in a letter penned as part of the Giving Pledge, a commitment founded by Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Melinda French Gates, urging billionaires to dedicate the majority of their wealth to charitable causes. In the letter, Schwarzman expressed concern over the societal impact of artificial intelligence, stating a require to prepare “our society…for the changes to come.” He has already funded two large-scale AI programs.
Schwarzman’s path to becoming a major philanthropic figure began with a career in banking at Lehman Brothers in 1972, where he rose to managing director before co-founding Blackstone with Pete Peterson in 1985. The firm launched with $400,000 and has since grown into a global financial powerhouse. Schwarzman has publicly credited his family with instilling a sense of charitable responsibility, recalling his grandfather’s regular shipments of aid to children in Israel and his father’s practice of extending credit to new immigrants.
In 2018, Schwarzman donated $350 million to MIT, the largest gift in the university’s history, to establish the Schwarzman College of Computing. He stated at the time that responsibly harnessing AI was “no more important opportunity or challenge facing our nation.” More recently, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026, Schwarzman indicated that global investors are prioritizing AI-led growth and infrastructure spending, even amidst ongoing geopolitical risks.
Despite signing the Giving Pledge, a July 2025 report by the Institute for Policy Studies found that 110 of the U.S. Signatories remained billionaires 15 years after making the commitment. Neither Blackstone nor the Stephen A. Schwarzman Foundation responded to requests for comment from Fortune regarding the planned expansion of the foundation.
