February 10, 2013 | Read Time: 1 minute
Amount donated in 2012: $150-million
Beneficiary: Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Background: Mr. Icahn is a financier.
Carl Icahn, 76, pledged $150-million to Mount Sinai School of Medicine to support research. Because of the commitment, the school has been re-named the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Its Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology and a scholars program have also been named for Mr. Icahn.
A member of the medical school’s Board of Trustees since 2000, Mr. Icahn previously gave a total of $50-million to the institution.
He said most of his philanthropy is geared toward medical causes and education. “I think there’s too much of a divergence between the very wealthy and people who haven’t had opportunities,” he told The Chronicle last year. “That namely is kids and poor people who haven’t had a shot. The charter school movement appeals to me quite a bit, as does a hospital like this.”
The donor established and supports six Icahn Charter Schools; to date, he has given $42-million through his foundations toward the schools.
“We don’t have the bureaucracies the Board of Education has. We don’t have the rules and encumbrances,” he said. “I believe that education should be privatized but privatized in a way where the wealthy of a society should donate to doing it.”
