Michael Bloomberg (14 February 1942-) was Mayor of New York City from 1 January 2002 to 31 December 2013, succeeding Rudy Giuliani and preceding Bill de Blasio. Bloomberg was a multi-billionaire financier, philanthropist, and media company owner, and he was known as a prominent centrist figure in American politics and a generous donor to higher education institutes.
Biography[]
Michael Rubens Bloomberg was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1942, and he became a partner at Salomon Brothers in New York City in 1973. In 1981, he founded his own company, Bloomberg LP, a global finances, software, and mass media company. He spent the next 20 years as its chairman and CEO, and he served on the board of trustees of his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, from 1996 to 2002. In 2001, he was elected Mayor of New York City as a Republican, having switched his party registration from Democrat, received former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's endorsement, and spent $73 million of his own money on his campaign. Bloomberg's election was the first time in history that two Republicans consecutively served as Mayor of New York City, and Bloomberg decided that New York should host the 2004 Republican National Convention (despite 68% of New Yorker voters being registered Democrats). Bloomberg was a staunch centrist, as he supported liberal views such as being pro-choice, pro-gun control, anti-stop-and-frisk, pro-teacher (raising teachers' pay and causing higher graduation rates among students), suppored environmentalism, supported welfare, prioritized public health issues (such as HIV, diabetes, and hypertension) and advocated for immigrant rights, while he supported conservative policies such as turning the city's $6 billion budget deficit into a $3 billion budget surplus through fiscal conservatism, providing tax breaks to corporations, supporting the 2007 "troop surge" during the Iraq War, and advocating for free trade. He also founded Everytown for Gun Safety in 2006 to advocate for gun control, and he was known for his participation in the "Giving Pledge". He left office in 2013, and he was briefly a full-time philanthropist before re-assuming the position of CEO of Bloomberg LP in late 2014. By 2019, he was giving 100% of his earnings to his foundation, which helped to fund gun control conferences and other philanthropic efforts; he also returned to the Democratic Party in 2018. On 11 November 2019, Bloomberg, encouraged by his friend Jeff Bezos, began planning to run for President of the United States. On 24 November, he formally announced his candidacy. He spent millions on television ads and attempted to become the leading moderate candidate, but he failed to perform well at the televised debates and, on Super Tuesday (3 March 2020), he only won American Samoa. On 4 March 2020, disappointed by his poor Super Tuesday results, Bloomberg dropped out of the race.
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