Few money managers can claim as fearsome a reputation as Paul Singer, the litigious, self-made billionaire and activist investor from Teaneck, New Jersey. Singer is both feared and renowned for his ability to unlock value for shareholders by overhauling executive teams he believes are weak, woke or underperforming.
The pugilistic 80-year-old founder of Florida hedge fund Elliott Management has been described as a “financial terrorist” for his practice of buying sizeable stakes in public companies and then pressuring them to alter their strategies, sell assets or fire top leaders. He’s also been called a “vulture capitalist” because he’s made an art of scooping up defaulted debt from struggling countries and then demanding payment in full.
In the media, however, Singer is more genteel. On a recent podcast he described himself as an activist shareholder who simply works “to control or influence outcomes.”
As the United States is learning, however, control-seeking billionaires rarely serve the public interest. The Manhattan Institute – a hard-right lobbying group that attacks regulation, the green energy transition, public education, social services and DEI – held an awards dinner for Singer in May, noting that all its recent success in these areas “would not be possible without Paul Singer.” (Recent headline on the institute’s website: “ESG Is Coming for Your Candy Bars.”)
As a libertarian, Singer has long supported the Koch family’s notorious promotion of tax cuts and fossil fuels. He donates generously to Republican causes, including US$63 million in the 2024 election, and $5 million to Trump’s campaign specifically.
Besides “control,” note Singer’s use of the word “influence.” In 2008, he flew with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to a US$1,000-a-day fishing lodge in Alaska, according to reporting by ProPublica. In the following years, Alito ruled on about 10 cases that Elliott Management brought to the Supreme Court as part of its high-stakes collection campaigns. Alito never disclosed Singer’s gift, nor did he recuse himself – even in a dispute with Argentina that netted Elliott US$2.4 billion.
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Singer has used his strong-arm tactics to halt the energy transition at fossil fuel companies. When Elliott muscled in on Canadian oil-sands giant Suncor in 2022, he demanded five board seats and a management review. Suncor promptly sold off $730 million in wind and solar assets that had been the company’s big bet on the future. The pressure also led Suncor to hire a new CEO, veteran Exxon executive Rich Kruger, who believes Suncor’s future lies in bitumen – the world’s dirtiest oil.
Rick Spence is a business writer, speaker and consultant in Toronto specializing in entrepreneurship, innovation and growth. He is also a senior editor at Corporate Knights.
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