26 Facts About John Paulson

John Alfred Paulson was born on December 14,1955 and is an American billionaire hedge fund manager.

John Paulson has been called "one of the most prominent names in high finance".

John Paulson acquired much of his fortune in 2007 when he earned almost $4 billion and was transformed "from an obscure money manager into a financial legend" by using credit default swaps to effectively bet against the US subprime mortgage lending market.

John Paulson's father was born Alfredo Guillermo Paulsen in Ecuador to a father of half French and half Norwegian descent and an Ecuadorian mother.

John Paulson later changed his surname from Paulsen to Paulson.

John Paulson began his career at Boston Consulting Group in 1980 where he did research, providing advice to companies.

John Paulson moved on to Bear Stearns working in the mergers and acquisitions department, and then to Gruss Partners LP, where he was a general partner.

John Paulson became world-famous in 2007 by shorting the US housing market, as he foresaw the subprime mortgage crisis and bet against mortgage-backed securities by investing in credit default swaps.

Sometimes referred to as the greatest trade in history, John Paulson's firm made a fortune and he earned over $4 billion personally on this trade alone.

John Paulson worked with Goldman Sachs to provide liquidity for low-performing home loans in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada.

John Paulson escaped indictment because his firm maintained that it was always transparent about its view of the mortgages that had been securitized and that the assets were not without risk.

In 2008, John Paulson co-wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece suggesting an alternative to the Treasury Secretary's plan for stabilizing the markets.

In 2011, John Paulson donated $1 million to Mitt Romney's Super PAC Restore Our Future.

John Paulson received media attention when he immediately backed Donald Trump after Trump secured the Republican nomination in 2016.

John Paulson served as one of the top economic advisers to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

Together with his spouse, John Paulson contributed $831,370 to Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign.

John Paulson has been a major fundraiser for Donald Trump's 2024 campaign.

Trump reportedly considered John Paulson to become Secretary of the Treasury, but Scott Bessent was chosen instead.

In October 2012, John Paulson donated $100 million to the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit organization that maintains New York City's Central Park.

In June 2015, John Paulson donated $400 million to Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the largest gift received in the university's history.

In 2022, New York University announced that John Paulson had donated $100 million towards the cost of a new building in its Washington Square Campus.

John Paulson contributed significantly to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2021 to celebrate the museum's 90th anniversary and has supported the Jerusalem Campus for the Arts.

In 2000, John Paulson married Jenny Zaharia in an Episcopalian ceremony in Southampton, New York; Jenny was a Romanian immigrant who came to the United States after her brother George, a track star in Romania, defected and moved to Queens.

John Paulson owned a home in Aspen, Colorado, purchased for $24.5 million in 2010 and an estate in Southampton that he bought for $41 million in 2008.

John Paulson filed for divorce in September 2021, but later withdrew his divorce action so that both sides could negotiate out of court and away from the media.

In 2024, John Paulson was reportedly engaged to be married to 35-year-old clinical dietitian Alina de Almeida.