Carl Icahn
Carl Icahn is a leading shareholder activist and one of Wall Street's most successful investors. He is the Founder and Majority Shareholder of Icahn Enterprises, a diversified conglomerate holding company engaged in a variety of businesses. Icahn is widely known as one of the most polarizing people in Wall Street with a reputation for delivering controversial decisions and initiatives that heavily influence corporate America. Some of his widely reported ventures include his takeover efforts of Texaco, Trans World Airlines (TWA), and American Airlines. He has donated about $200 million to what is now the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His many charitable interests focus primarily on medicine, education and child welfare.
Carl Icahn Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
-
Founder and Controlling Shareholder
Academic History
-
B.A., Philosophy
CONTROVERSY
In 2024, Icahn and his firm Icahn Enterprises settled charges for failing to disclose pledges of the company’s securities as collateral for billions of dollars in personal loans.
The investigation came after a report from short-seller Hindenburg Research sent shares in Icahn’s investment firm spiraling the year before.
Icahn Enterprises and Icahn have agreed to pay $1.5 million and $500,000 in civil penalties, respectively, to settle the SEC’s charges.
INVESTMENT HIGHLIGHTS
Icahn became widely known as a corporate raider in the 1980s when he engineered a takeover of TWA, or Trans World Airlines.
He bought the airline in 1985 but by 1992 it filed for bankruptcy. TWA emerged from bankruptcy a year later but continued to operate at a loss and its assets were sold to American Airlines in 2001.
In February Icahn took a nearly 10% stake in JetBlue.
Icahn and his affiliated companies currently own businesses in a wide range of industries, including real estate, telecommunications, transportation, industrial services, oil refining and manufacturing.
PHILANTHROPY
In recognition of his $200 million gift, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine was renamed the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2012, and the Institute of Genomics the Icahn Genomics Institute.
Icahn established seven Icahn Charter Schools in The Bronx borough of New York City. He funded the Carl C. Icahn Science Center and Choate Science Building.
He established The Children’s Rescue Fund, which operates two shelters in the Bronx and Manhattan under city contracts
He funded the construction of Icahn House, a 65-unit complex created to serve single pregnant women and single women with children.
MEDIA & PUBLICATIONS
Icahn has been profiled in Forbes, Business Insider, The New York Times, Entrepreneur, The Wall Street Journal, and more.
He has been featured in Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, The Financial Times, Yahoo! Finance, Reuters, Fortune, MarketWatch, and TheStreet, among others.