David Rubenstein

David Mark Rubenstein ( ROO-ben-styne; born August 11, 1949) is an American billionaire businessman, philanthropist, and former government official. He is a co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm based in Washington, D.C. Rubenstein is also the principal owner of Major League Baseball (MLB) team the Baltimore Orioles.

Rubenstein is the chairman of the National Gallery of Art, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. He is a former board of trustees chairman at Duke University and the Smithsonian Institution. He was co-chair of the board at the Brookings Institution. In 2022, he became chair of the University of Chicago's board of trustees. According to Forbes, Rubenstein had an estimated net worth of approximately $4.1 billion as of May 2026.

Rubenstein was the chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts from 2010 until 2025, when he was replaced by president Donald Trump.

Rubenstein grew up as an only child in a Jewish family in Baltimore. He descends from illiterates in a Ukrainian Shtetl. His father was a United States Postal Service file clerk, and his mother was a homemaker and then began working in a dress shop when he was six years old. He later recalled: "When I was young, Baltimore was a religiously segregated city. The Jews were in the northwest part of town, and it was very much a ghetto situation. I was 13 before I realized everyone in the world was not Jewish. Up to that point, everyone I knew was Jewish."

Rubenstein graduated from the college preparatory high school Baltimore City College in 1966, an all-male school at the time. He then attended Duke University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1970. He earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1973, where he was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review along with future U.S. federal judges Douglas H. Ginsburg and Frank Easterbrook.

From 1973 to 1975, Rubenstein practiced law in New York at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. From 1975 to 1976, he served as chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. Rubenstein also served as a deputy domestic policy advisor to President Jimmy Carter and worked in private practice with Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge in Washington, D.C.

In 1987, Rubenstein founded the Carlyle Group with William E. Conway Jr. and Daniel A. D'Aniello. The firm has grown into a global investment firm with $477 billion in assets under management (AUM) as of December 31, 2025, and more than 1,800 employees in 31 offices on six continents.

Rubenstein was co-CEO of Carlyle until 2011, when he transitioned to the role of co-executive chairman, with Glenn Youngkin and Michael Cavanagh assuming co-CEO responsibilities.

In 2006, Rubenstein expressed fear that the private equity boom would end, saying, "This has been a golden age for our industry, but nothing continues to be golden forever." One month later, he said, "Right now we're operating as if the music's not going to stop playing and the music is going to stop. I am more concerned about this than any other issue". According to Phiwa Nkambule, "These concerns proved to be right, as at the end of 2007, the buyout market collapsed... As leveraged loan activity came to an abrupt stop, private equity firms were unable to secure financing for their transactions." However, Rubenstein's outlook quickly rebounded, and in 2008, he said, "But once this period is over, once the debt on the books of the banks is sold and new lending starts, I think you'll see the private equity industry coming back in what I call the Platinum Age – better than it's ever been before. I do think that the private equity industry has a great future and that the greatest period for private equity is probably ahead of us." Reflecting on this period in 2018, Rubenstein argued that "actually most of the deals done in the heyday of the Great Recession pretty much worked out," and that the private equity industry had been "strengthened so much that now it’s the greatest time we’ve ever had to raise money."

In May 2012, Carlyle completed its initial public offering on the Nasdaq, raising approximately $671 million and valuing the firm at $6.7 billion – one of the most anticipated private equity IPOs in years.

Rubenstein lives in Bethesda, Maryland, and was married to Alice Rogoff, founder of the Alaska House New York and the Alaska Native Arts Foundation and former owner of Alaska Dispatch News. They met while both were working for the Carter administration and married on May 21, 1983. The couple divorced on December 8, 2017.

Rubenstein and Rogoff had three children together, two daughters and a son. Gabrielle "Ellie" Rubenstein co-founded Manna Tree, a private equity firm that invests in health and nutrition companies; she was also one of two dozen honorary co-chairs of the Alaskan chapter of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

Rubenstein was among the initial 40 individuals who have pledged to donate more than half of their wealth to philanthropic causes or charities as part of The Giving Pledge. Rubenstein is well known for his "patriotic philanthropy" focused on preservation of American history and historic sites.

In December 2007, Rubenstein purchased the last privately owned copy of Magna Carta at Sotheby's auction house in New York for $21.3 million. He has lent it to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. In 2011, he gave $13.5 million to the National Archives for a new gallery and visitor center.

In 2013, Rubenstein purchased the July 6, 1776 edition of The Pennsylvania Evening Post, which was the first newspaper to print the U.S. Declaration of Independence, for $632,500, so it could be placed on public display. He loaned the copy, one of 19 known to exist, to the Newseum in 2016.

In 2012, Rubinstein purchased a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abraham Lincoln, for $2 million. It was one of 48 copies of the Proclamation to be signed by Lincoln, of which about half survive. Rubenstein donated $10 million to the National Museum of African American History and Culture and loaned the museum his copy of the Emancipation Proclamation as well as a rare copy of the Thirteenth Amendment, which was also signed by Lincoln. Rubenstein acquired the 1784 Abel Buell map at Christie's in 2011 and loaned it to the Library of Congress for display.

In November 2013, he bought a copy of the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in British North America, for $14.1 million. This was the highest price ever paid for a printed book. Rubenstein loaned the book to Duke University, where it was publicly displayed.

2006, Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Eli Broad during the International Achievement Summit in Los Angeles

2011, National Archives Foundation’s Records of Achievement Award, for his loan of the 1297 Magna Carta as well as a rare Stone engraving of the Declaration of Independence to the National Archives for public display

2014, elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

2017, LBJ Foundation’s Liberty & Justice for All Award

2018, Legend in Leadership Award of Yale SOM’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute

American Academy of Arts & Sciences, board member

Bloomberg Television – Peer to Peer Conversations — The David Rubenstein Show

Brookings Institution – former Co-Chairman, Chairman Emeritus

The Carlyle Group – co-founder and Co-Chairman

China–United States Exchange Foundation – Steering committee member