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Mike’s Story

Michael R. Bloomberg is an entrepreneur and three-term mayor of New York City whose innovations in business, government, and philanthropy have made him a global leader on climate change, public health, education, and other critical issues facing America and the world.

He has given away $25.4 billion so far, with $4.3 billion distributed in 2025 alone.

In 2024, President Biden awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, which recognizes those who have made particularly extraordinary contributions to the United States and the world.

Mike Bloomberg

Mike’s Story

Mike Bloomberg

Michael R. Bloomberg is an entrepreneur and three-term mayor of New York City whose innovations in business, government, and philanthropy have made him a global leader on climate change, public health, education, and other critical issues facing America and the world.

He has given away $25.4 billion so far, with $4.3 billion distributed in 2025 alone.

In 2024, President Biden awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, which recognizes those who have made particularly extraordinary contributions to the United States and the world.

Meet Mike

Born in Boston on February 14, 1942, Mike Bloomberg grew up in a middle-class home in Medford, Massachusetts, and graduated from Medford High School. His drive to succeed, love of work, and passion for service began at a young age. When he was 12 years old he became one of the youngest Eagle Scouts in history. To help pay his way through Johns Hopkins University, he worked in a parking lot and took out government loans. After college, he attended Harvard Business School and in 1966 was hired by a financial services firm, Salomon Brothers, for an entry-level job.

Mike Bloomberg
With his proud parents and sister looking on, Mike Bloomberg becomes an Eagle Scout in 1954.

Bloomberg quickly rose through the ranks at Salomon, overseeing equity trading and sales before heading up the firm’s information systems. When Salomon was acquired in 1981, he was let go. It turned out to be a moment that would define the rest of his life. The next day, with the idea for a technology company that would bring greater transparency and fairness to the financial system, he launched a small startup in a one-room office. Today, Bloomberg LP is a global company that employs some 25,000 people in 120 countries.

Lifting New York City

In 2001, just weeks after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Bloomberg was elected mayor of New York City. He and his team rallied New Yorkers and led the city’s resurgence, writing one of the great comeback stories in American history. He turned around a broken public school system by raising standards and making new investments in schools. He spurred economic growth and record levels of job creation by revitalizing old industrial areas, helping small business open and expand, and connecting New Yorkers to new skills and jobs. Thanks to policies he put in place, the city recovered from the global recession far faster and stronger than the country overall.

Mayor Bloomberg’s passion for public health led to ambitious new strategies that became national models, including a ban on smoking in all indoor workplaces, as well as at parks and beaches. Life expectancy grew by three years during his time in office. He also launched cutting-edge anti-poverty efforts, including the Young Men’s Initiative and the Center for Economic Opportunity, whose ground-breaking programs have been replicated across the country. As a result, New York City’s welfare rolls fell 25 percent, and New York was the only big city in the country not to experience an increase in poverty between 2000 and 2012.

Mayor Bloomberg also created innovative plans to fight climate change and promote sustainable development, which helped cut the city’s carbon footprint by 13 percent. He was a strong champion of the city’s cultural community, expanding support for artists and arts organizations and helping to bring more than 500 permanent public art commissions to all five boroughs.

As Mayor, Mike Bloomberg created innovative plans to fight climate change and promote sustainable development, which helped cut the city’s carbon footprint by 13 percent. 

As Mayor, Mike Bloomberg created innovative plans to fight climate change and promote sustainable development, which helped cut the city’s carbon footprint by 13 percent. 

Mayor Bloomberg’s passion for public health led to ambitious new strategies that became national models, including a ban on smoking in all indoor workplaces, as well as at parks and beaches. Life expectancy grew by three years during his time in office. He also launched cutting-edge anti-poverty efforts, including the Young Men’s Initiative and the Center for Economic Opportunity, whose ground-breaking programs have been replicated across the country. As a result, New York City’s welfare rolls fell 25 percent, and New York was the only big city in the country not to experience an increase in poverty between 2000 and 2012.

Mayor Bloomberg also created innovative plans to fight climate change and promote sustainable development, which helped cut the city’s carbon footprint by 13 percent. He was a strong champion of the city’s cultural community, expanding support for artists and arts organizations and helping to bring more than 500 permanent public art commissions to all five boroughs.

Mike Bloomberg is inaugurated as New York City's 108th Mayor on January 1, 2002
Mike Bloomberg is inaugurated as New York City’s Mayor on January 1, 2002 (Courtesy of the City of New York)

A life of influence and impact

Upon leaving City Hall, Bloomberg returned to the company he founded while also devoting more time to philanthropy, which has been a top priority for him throughout his career. Today, Bloomberg Philanthropies employs a unique data-driven approach to global change that grows out of his experiences as an entrepreneur and mayor. Bloomberg has pledged to give away nearly all his money during his lifetime and has so far donated $25.4 billion to a wide variety of causes and organizations.

In addition to Bloomberg Philanthropies’ core focus areas – Public Health, the Arts, the Environment, Education, Government Innovation, and the Greenwood Initiative (which aims to accelerate the pace of wealth accumulation in Black communities and address systemic underinvestment in them) – Bloomberg continues to support projects of great importance to him, including his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University. He served as chairman of the board of trustees from 1996 to 2001, and the university’s School of Hygiene and Public Health is named the Bloomberg School of Public Health in recognition of his commitment and support. In 2018, he gave $1.8 billion to allow Johns Hopkins to permanently accept and enroll students without regard to their ability to pay – the largest gift in the history of American higher education. 

Bloomberg has a long history of supporting candidates on both sides of the aisle. In 2020, he ran for president to make progress on the greatest challenges facing America. 

Mike gave $1.8 billion to his alma mater Johns Hopkins to forever guarantee need-blind admissions for all students.

 

Mike gave $1.8 billion to his alma mater Johns Hopkins to forever guarantee need-blind admissions for all students.

 

In addition to Bloomberg Philanthropies’ core focus areas – Public Health, the Arts, the Environment, Education, Government Innovation, and the Greenwood Initiative (which aims to accelerate the pace of wealth accumulation in Black communities and address systemic underinvestment in them) – Bloomberg continues to support projects of great importance to him, including his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University. He served as chairman of the board of trustees from 1996 to 2001, and the university’s School of Hygiene and Public Health is named the Bloomberg School of Public Health in recognition of his commitment and support. In 2018, he gave $1.8 billion to allow Johns Hopkins to permanently accept and enroll students without regard to their ability to pay – the largest gift in the history of American higher education. 

Bloomberg has a long history of supporting candidates on both sides of the aisle. In 2020, he ran for president to return integrity, honesty, and competence to the White House, and make progress on the greatest challenges facing America. His campaign followed on the heels of his successful effort to help flip 21 House seats from red to blue in the 2018 elections, following the Republican Party’s lack of oversight of the executive branch, and to give Democrats control of Virginia’s state government in 2019 for the first time in a generation. Although his campaign for the Democratic nomination came up short, he was one of the largest individual supporters of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the general election.

Mike Bloomberg announces the potential impact of the Bloomberg Philanthropies American Cities Climate Challenge while in Orlando, Florida in February 2019.

Bloomberg is one of America’s most fearless and effective voices on urgent issues, including climate change, gun violence, and public health. He serves as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions and is also the WHO Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries. In 2020, he launched a series of efforts to help fight the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. and around the world, including committing $40 million to help low- and middle-income countries prevent the spread of the disease. The gun safety group he helped found, Everytown for Gun Safety, now has 10 million supporters and is the largest coalition of Americans fighting for common-sense gun laws. His partnership with the Sierra Club has helped retire outdated power plants and replaced many of them with cleaner energy, saving lives and creating new jobs. Since he began working with partners in Europe, over half of all polluting plants have closed there, too, and he has extended his support for clean air and clean energy to more regions around the world.

Bloomberg served as chair of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Board, which provided strategic insights and recommendations on technology and innovation that helped address national security priorities.