Background and career
Jeffrey Steven Yass (born July 1958) is an American billionaire businessman. According to Forbes, Yass had a net worth of US$77.8 billion as of September 2026, up from $27.6 billion in April 2024. The richest man in Pennsylvania, he is also the 25th richest in the world. He is a registered Libertarian who gives money to conservative super PACs including Club for Growth Action and the Protect Freedom Political Action Committee. He and his wife Janine Yass are supporters of school choice, a cause to which they have donated tens of millions of dollars. Yass is the co-founder and managing director of the Philadelphia-based trading and technology firm Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and a major investor in TikTok. After Yass and US President Trump met in March 2024, Trump went from supporting a ban on TikTok to opposing a ban. In 2002, Yass joined the executive advisory council of the Cato Institute and is a member of the executive advisory council. He donated approximately $100 million during the 2024 US election cycle to Republican Party groups and campaigns.
Yass was born in 1958 in Queens, New York City, and grew up there in a middle-class Jewish family. Yass attended public schools in Queens, graduating from Bayside High School in 1975. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and economics from Binghamton University. He pursued graduate studies in economics at New York University.
While at the State University of New York at Binghamton in the 1970s, Yass and five fellow students became friends and in 1987 co-founded Susquehanna International Group (SIG), the largest trader of liquid stocks in the US. In the 1970s and early 1980s, before establishing his trading firm, Yass was a professional gambler, winning sums from poker and horse betting. In 2001, Yass appeared as one of 76 Revolutionary Minds in Philadelphia magazine. Billionaire trader Israel Englander sponsored Yass for a seat on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and SIG was initially run from an office at the Exchange. His father, Gerald Yass, played an integral role in founding the company, contributing his expertise as a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and helping to build SIG’s back-office bookkeeping operations. Gerald remained actively involved with the firm for decades, providing crucial support to its early infrastructure. In 2021, SIG generated almost one-tenth of the market making trade volume in exchange-traded funds.
Yass has contributed significant sums to political efforts. In 2015, Yass donated $2.3 million to a super PAC supporting Rand Paul's presidential candidacy. He and his wife contributed just over $5 million in 2016. In 2018 he donated $3.8 million to the Club for Growth, and $20.7 million in 2020. In the 2020 election cycle, Yass was one of the ten largest political donors in the United States donating $25.3 million, all to Republican candidates. During the 2022 primary elections, Yass spent at least $18 million, including contributions in support of Republican Bill McSwain, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor of Pennsylvania. While primarily donating to Republicans, he also donated $1 million to the Moderate PAC which was set up to support Democratic incumbents against progressive primary challengers during the 2024 election cycle. He donated approximately $100 million during the 2024 US election cycle to Republican groups and campaigns, including $6 million in political contributions via the Commonwealth Leaders Fund PAC, supporting Republican Dave Sunday over Democrat Eugene DePasquale in the 2024 Pennsylvania Attorney General election. In the first half of 2025, Yass donated $16 million to MAGA Inc., a super PAC that supports Donald Trump, which was the highest recorded donation during that period. He donated $10 million to Vivek Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial super PAC in 2025. In 2026, Yass and his wife Janine Yass spent over $89.3 million in political contributions, donating $20,000,000 to Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial super PAC, $16,000,000 to MAGA Inc., and $15,000,000 to Club for Growth Action.
In March 2021, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Jeff Yass and Arthur Dantchik were behind a large portion of the donations to the Kohelet Policy Forum, whose worldview is based on nationalism, low taxes and market freedom. The Kohelet Policy Forum was responsible for the 2023 Israeli judicial reform proposal. Also according to Haaretz, Yass is a major supporter of Israeli conservative think tanks. In April 2024, The Guardian reported that Jeff Yass donated $16 million to anti-Muslim and pro-Israel groups.
Yass and his wife strongly support school choice, with Janine Yass writing a 2017 opinion piece for The Washington Examiner in support of then-incoming Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos's views at school choice and the couple writing an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2023 advocating for parental school choice in Pennsylvania. In November 2021, he donated $5 million to the School Freedom Fund, a PAC that ran ads for Republican candidates running in the 2022 election cycle nationwide. From 2010 to 2022, Yass contributed $41.7 million to Students First political action committee. Yass co-founded the PAC, which supports the school choice movement.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
