What is Jeff Yass's Net Worth?
Jeff Yass is a billionaire businessman who has a net worth of $46 billion. Jeff Yass earned his fortune as the co-founder of the Philadelphia-based trading and technology firm Susquehanna International Group. Yass owns 51% of the company. Susquehanna generated north of $5 billion per year.
A registered Libertarian, he is known for his large donations to conservative super-PACs and various Republican groups and campaigns, including the campaigns of election-denying candidates. Yass is a major investor in the video hosting service TikTok and the social media platform Truth Social.
Early Life and Education
Jeff Yass was born in 1958 in the Queens borough of New York City to Jewish parents Sybil and Gerald. He has a sister named Carole. For his higher education, Yass went to Binghamton University, from which he earned his bachelor's degree. He subsequently attended graduate school at New York University, but did not graduate.
Susquehanna International Group
In 1987, Yass co-founded the global trading and technology firm Susquehanna International Group with a group of his friends from Binghamton University. The firm went on to generate $30 million in annual revenue in its first year. SIG expanded significantly over the subsequent years, and eventually became the largest trader of liquid stocks in the United States. With over 3,000 employees worldwide, the firm has a number of affiliated entities that specialize in such areas as equities, energy, research, and customer trading. Notably, SIG is a major investor in ByteDance, the parent company of the video hosting service TikTok. It also acquired a substantial share of Donald Trump's social media platform Truth Social when Trump was facing enormous legal expenses in 2024.
Political Donations
A registered Libertarian, Yass has made major donations to conservative super-PACs and Republican organizations and campaigns. In 2015, he donated over $2 million to a super-PAC supporting the presidential candidacy of Rand Paul. Yass later donated huge amounts to the organization Club for Growth. In the 2020 election cycle, he was among the ten largest political donors in the United States, with over $25 million in contributions to Republican candidates. During the 2024 election cycle, Yass donated more than $46 million to Republican groups and campaigns, mostly to rivals of Donald Trump.
Yass is a prominent supporter of school choice, and has made substantial donations to such PACs as the School Freedom Fund and Students First, the latter of which he co-founded. Elsewhere, he has made large contributions to think tanks in Israel, including the Kohelet Policy Forum.
Philanthropy
Yass has been involved in some philanthropic endeavors over the years. In late 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he donated to the charitable fund established by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to assist the victims. Yass has also contributed to such organizations as Save the Children and the Spirit of Golf Foundation. With his wife, he founded the Yass Prize for Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding, and Permissionless (STOP) education, which recognizes and champions nontraditional education models. In 2022, the Yass Prize awarded over $20 million to the Arizona Autism Charter Schools.
Personal Life
With his wife Janine, Yass has four children. The family lives in Haverford, Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania.
