The Billionaire Donor Taking On His Alma Mater Over Antisemitism

Apollo CEO Marc Rowan wasn’t vocal about social issues. Then Israel was attacked.

When Marc Rowan’s father died while he was a student at the University of Pennsylvania and the family could no longer afford tuition, the school told him he could finish paying whenever he was able.

Rowan sent the university the money a few months after graduation, using his first bonus from his job as a junior investment banker at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Grateful for its generosity, he kept giving to Penn as he climbed to the pinnacle of Wall Street power. He donated $50 million to its Wharton school in 2018, the largest gift the business school had ever received at the time.

But after Hamas attacked Israel Oct. 7, Rowan, the chief executive of private-equity giant Apollo Global Management, went on television and said he is halting donations to his alma mater over its response to the conflict and antisemitism on campus. He is at the center of an alumni revolt against the school and has called for Penn’s president and the chair of its board of trustees to step down.

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