Leon Black

Leon David Black (born July 31, 1951) is an American private equity investor. He is the former CEO of Apollo Global Management, which he co-founded in 1990 with Marc Rowan and Josh Harris. Black was the chairman of the Museum of Modern Art from 2018 to 2021. Black resigned from both Apollo Global Management and the Museum of Modern Art in the wake of revelations about his business ties to the New York financier and child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.

Between 2012 and 2017, Black paid Epstein a total of $170 million for "tax and financial services" that reportedly saved him over $1 billion in taxes. After Black had a long-term affair with a Russian model, she threatened to make public allegations of sexual abuse unless he paid her $100 million. Epstein negotiated a 2015 NDA under which Black agreed to pay her $100,000 per month over 15 years, totalling $18 million.

Early life and education Black is a son of Eli M. Black (1921–1975), a Jewish businessman who emigrated from Poland as a child (surname, "Blachowitz") and was the chairman and later majority owner of the United Brands Company. His mother, Shirley Lubell (sister of Tulsa oil executive Benedict I. Lubell) was an artist. In 1975, his father killed himself at age 53.

Black received an AB in philosophy and history from Dartmouth College in 1973 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1975. From 1977 to 1990, Black was employed by investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert, where he rose to managing director and head of the Mergers and Acquisitions Group, and co-head of the Corporate Finance Department. At Drexel, Black was regarded as "junk bond king" Michael Milken's right-hand man.

After Drexel Burnham Lambert filed for bankruptcy in 1990, Black co-founded Apollo Global Management with Marc Rowan, Josh Harris, and Antony Ressler. Apollo specialized in leveraged buyouts and distressed securities, growing to become one of the world's largest private equity firms. The firm went public in 2011 and as of March 2026 manages approximately $1.03 trillion in assets under management. Black was CEO until January 2021, when he stepped down following the publication of the Dechert report into his financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and fully departed Apollo in March 2021.

Black's net worth results primarily from his retained stake in Apollo Global Management. In February 2024, he sold Apollo shares for the first time since co-founding the firm, offloading approximately $172.8 million worth of stock (roughly 2% of his holding).

Board roles Black was on the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College from 2002 to 2011. He is on Dartmouth's President's Leadership Council and has endowed a chair in Shakespeare Studies as well as a program in Jewish Studies. His term as chairman ended on July 1, 2021, and he did not seek re-election, in the wake of protests from dozens of artists and activists over his financial ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Leon and his wife Debra are both on the board of the Melanoma Research Alliance.

Personal life Black is married to Debra Ressler, a 1976 Barnard College graduate and Broadway producer and sister of Ares Management co-founder Antony Ressler. They have four children. One of their children, Benjamin, runs an investment fund and was nominated by President Donald Trump to run the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. Debra Black is a melanoma survivor. In 2007, the couple donated $25 million to form the Melanoma Research Alliance.

In 2012, Black gave $48 million toward a new visual arts center at Dartmouth College.

In 2016, Black listed his condominium at Miami's Faena House for sale with listing agent Oren Alexander. Black's primary home is in Manhattan and he has a beachfront compound in Southampton, New York. In 2016, he and Debra bought a Beverly Hills estate previously owned by the actor Tom Cruise for approximately $38 million; the property sold in March 2026 for approximately $47 million.

Art collection

In May 2012, Black purchased one of the four versions of Edvard Munch's The Scream. He paid $119.9 million for the pastel, then the highest price ever paid for a work of art. In September 2012, the Museum of Modern Art announced the work would be exhibited for a six-month period starting in October.

In June 2013, it was revealed that Black had purchased Head of a Young Apostle, an work by Raphael for £29 million after a four-party bidding war.

On December 22, 2015, it was reported that Black purchased at auction a complete set of the Daniel Bomberg Babylonian Talmud for $9.3 million. According to a press release from the Sotheby's auction house, the sale was "a new world auction record for any piece of Judaica."

In June 2016, a lawsuit over the Picasso sculpture Bust of a Woman (Marie-Thérèse) between the advisory firm Pelham Europe and art gallery owner Larry Gagosian was settled. Pelham Europe, an agent for a member of Qatar's royal family, and Gagosian, who had resold the bust to Black, both claimed ownership. The case was settled by Maya Widmaier-Picasso, the owner of the sculpture. The settlement included Black getting the sculpture and Widmaier Picasso paying Pelham an undisclosed amount.

Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein Black had a friendship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. For Epstein's 50th birthday greeting album that was compiled in 2003 by Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell, Black contributed a "handwritten poem with a rhyme scheme" which included the acronym "V.F.P.C." which stood for "Vanity Fair Poster Child". This was in reference to a profile of Epstein that was being written for the magazine. The poem contained the lines "Blonde, Red or Brunette, spread out geographically/With this net of fish, Jeff’s now The Old Man and The Sea". He signed the poem "Love and kisses, Leon".

In 2009, Black contributed $60 million in a settlement with Huntsman Corporation after Apollo was sued for backing out of a merger the previous year. In 2021, Black stepped down as CEO and chairman after Dechert LLP, which had been retained several months earlier by Apollo to investigate Black's dealings with Epstein, published a report finding that Black had paid $158 million to Epstein between 2012 and 2017 for advice on taxes and estate planning. In 2022, Black included Josh Harris in a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) lawsuit, alleging that he led a group within Apollo attempting to tarnish his reputation after his ties to Epstein were reported. Federal judge Paul Engelmayer dismissed the suit for lack of evidence, with an appeals court upholding the decision in 2023.

In 2019, Black stated that he maintained a "limited relationship" with Epstein. However, Epstein's calendar showed that between 2013 and 2017 he had more than 100 meetings with Black, typically held at Epstein's townhouse.

In 1997, Black appointed Epstein as one of the trustees of his Foundation. The New York Times reported that Black had paid Epstein at least $50 million for such services from 2012 to 2017. Black did not at the time confirm the $50 million sum reported by The New York Times, but said that he paid Epstein "millions of dollars annually for his work". In October 2020, Black requested that the Apollo board conduct an independent review of his relationship with Epstein, and it retained the law firm Dechert LLP to do so. Black has said that he "deeply regrets" his relationship with Epstein.

The review conducted by Dechert LLP was released on January 25, 2021. It showed that Black had paid Epstein around $158 million from 2012 through 2017 for financial services. Black pledged his intention to donate $200 million to women's initiatives. In 2023, Black paid $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands to be released from claims related to Epstein. In July 2023, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee made public that it was investigating Black's tax strategies and dealings with Epstein.

In July 2025, Senator Ron Wyden, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, called on the Internal Revenue Service to investigate potential tax evasion related to Black's payments to Epstein, urging the Justice Department to subpoena Epstein-related records from Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank. In March 2026, Wyden released new information establishing that Black had paid Epstein a total of $170 million (not $158 million as previously reported) after Senate investigators discovered an additional $12 million in transfers that had been missed by the earlier Apollo-commissioned Dechert review.

According to a 2026 report by the New York Times, Black had paid Epstein a total of $170 million by 2017 for what Black said were tax and estate work. According to the Times, the sum far exceeded what "elite" law or accounting firms charge for such work. The Times reported that Epstein did not just provide tax and estate work, but helped Black dispense money to women, with at least $20 million going to a dozen women, with some of whom Black had sexual relations. Black told the committee that Epstein had "duped and deceived" him and denied knowing about Epstein's sex-trafficking activities. He declined to answer broader questions concerning non-disclosure agreements involving women, and the interview ended before the committee had completed its questioning. Committee chairman James Comer subsequently issued two subpoenas, one requiring Black to produce the agreements and another compelling him to return for a deposition. The committee released the transcript of the interview on July 17. Comer has threatened to hold Black in contempt of Congress if the latter does not produce more NDAs.

In July 2026, a committee spokesperson said that Black's attorney had confirmed he would appear for the subpoenaed deposition on September 3, 2026, and would produce the agreements; Comer had said the deposition would be videotaped and taken under oath.

In September 2026, the financial journalist William D. Cohan published Money to Burn: The Unvarnished Truth About Leon Black, Apollo, and the Rise of a New Wall Street, a biography drawing on interviews with Black that were first published in Puck. Cohan's account attributes Black's downfall to his own conduct and credulity rather than to complicity in Epstein's crimes, and Cohan described the book as in part a rebuttal of the press coverage of Black. A spokesman for The New York Times said the paper had "covered Leon Black fairly and accurately, and the reporting has stood up through all the Epstein revelations that followed". Cohan noted that the congressional scrutiny of Black's payments to women emerged late in the book's production.

Lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct In March 2021, Russian model Guzel Ganieva claimed in a series of tweets, that beginning in 2008 she was "sexually harassed and abused by [Black] for years [and ultimately] forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement under duress". Black denied the allegations, stating that he had engaged in a years long consensual affair with her. Black accused her of extortion after paying her millions of dollars through an NDA to keep quiet about their affair. Ganieva filed a lawsuit (represented by Jeanne Christensen of Wigdor LLP), and Black countersued her. Ganieva also alleged that Black introduced her to Epstein, and that he attempted to force her to have sex with him. A judge dismissed Ganieva's lawsuit in May 2023 after ruling that the "NDA clearly and unambiguously covers all claims arising out of the parties’ relationship, past or future". In 2026, unsealed emails showed that, in 2015, Ganieva had demanded $100 million from Black. At the time, Jeffrey Epstein assisted Black in handling the conflict and arranged meetings between the two. Ganieva eventually agreed to a non-disclosure agreement, under which Black paid her $100,000 per month, over 15 years, totalling $18 million. Black denied ever having met Pierson, and his attorney describing the lawsuit as an extortion attempt. Pierson dropped her lawsuit in February 2024. Black's lawyers described Pierson as a "serial litigator" and characterised the suit as an extortion attempt.

On July 25, 2023, a third lawsuit was brought by Jeanne Christensen at Wigdor, alleging that Black violently raped a 16-year-old girl with autism and Down syndrome, who has the "developmental age" of a 12 year old, inside Epstein's Manhattan townhouse in 2002. Black denied the allegations or ever meeting the plaintiff, accusing Wigdor of repeatedly manufacturing "defamatory lies, masquerading as allegations". In April 2026, a judge determined that the plaintiff had "falsified sonogram images in her personal journals". Her lawyer Jeanne Christensen was also sanctioned for repeatedly lying to the court, and exited the case. Doe is now representing herself.

In August 2023, Black sued Wigdor LLP for malicious prosecution, arguing the Wigdor business model relied upon "scandalous allegations that can be avoided only at the cost of a large settlement, of which Wigdor takes a substantial cut".

In March 2026, Wigdor LLP filed a fourth lawsuit against Black, alleging that he used strategic lawsuits against public participation their attorneys and their clients.

In April 2026, a judge sanctioned Wigdor LLP lawyer Jeanne Christensen in a 76 page ruling, determining that she had repeatedly lied to the court and Black's lawyers. Black's lawyers said Wigdor "destroyed evidence, falsified evidence and committed ‘serious and varied misconduct’ in their zeal to try to destroy Mr. Black". Wigdor were ordered to pay some of Black's legal fees.

Through the Debra and Leon Black Family Foundation, he provided $7.5 million to establish a fellowship program for U.S. military personnel and veterans at Harvard Kennedy School.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Leon and Debra Black partnered with Aramark and the Mayor's Fund to launch NYC Healthcare Heroes. They committed $20 million to provide hundreds of thousands of care packages, including food, household goods, and personal care items, to over 100,000 healthcare workers in New York City.