Michael Bloomberg

Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is the current Mayor of New York City, and the 8th richest person in the United States with personal wealth of US$18 billion in 2010.[2] He is the founder and 88% owner of Bloomberg L.P., a financial news and information services media company.[3][4][5]

A lifelong Democrat before seeking elective office, Bloomberg switched his registration in 2001 and ran for mayor as a Republican, winning the election that year and a second term in 2005. He was frequently mentioned as a possible independent candidate for the 2008 presidential election and fueled that speculation when he left the Republican Party in June 2007 to become an independent.[6] There was also speculation that he would run as a vice-presidential candidate.[7] Bloomberg did not, however, seek the presidency nor was he selected as a running mate by any of the presidential candidates.

In the fall of 2008, Bloomberg successfully campaigned for an amendment to New York City's term limits law, in order to allow him to run for a third term in 2009. Bloomberg won the election[8] on November 3, 2009.

Wealth
In March 2009, Forbes reported Michael Bloomberg's wealth at $16 billion, a gain of $4.5 billion since the previous year, which makes him one of the most successful billionaires in the United States during the recession, and the world's biggest increase in wealth in 2009.[12] At that time, there were only four fortunes in the U.S. that were larger (although the Wal-Mart family fortune is split among four people). Bloomberg moved from 142nd to 17th in the Forbes list of the world's billionaires in only two years (March 2007 - March 2009).[13][14][15]

Business career
Bloomberg became a general partner at Salomon Brothers, where he headed equity trading and, later, systems development. In 1981, he was fired from Salomon Brothers and was given a $10 million severance package.[16] Using this money, Bloomberg went on to set up a company named Innovative Market Systems. In 1982, Merrill Lynch became the new company's first customer, installing 22 of the company's Market Master terminals and investing $30 million in the company. The company was renamed Bloomberg L.P. in 1986. By 1987, it had installed 5,000 terminals. Within a few years, ancillary products including Bloomberg Tradebook (a trading platform), the Bloomberg Messaging Service, and the Bloomberg newswire were launched. As of 2009, the company had more than 250,000 terminals worldwide. His company also has a radio network, which currently has its flagship station as 1130 WBBR-AM in New York City. He left the position of CEO to pursue a political career as the mayor of New York. He was replaced as CEO by Lex Fenwick. The company is now led by president Dan Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor under Bloomberg.

As mayor of New York, Bloomberg declines to receive a city salary, accepting remuneration of $1.00 annually for his services. He maintains a public listing in the New York City phone directory, residing not in Gracie Mansion, the official mayor's mansion, but instead at his own home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, at 17 East 79th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues. He owns additional homes in London, Bermuda and Vail.[17]

Bloomberg is, by his own accounts at least, a frequent rider of the New York City Subway, particularly in the commute from his 79th Street home to his office at City Hall. An August 2007 story in The New York Times contradicted this notion, suggesting instead that he often was chauffeured by two New York Police Department-owned SUVs to an express train station to avoid having to change from the local to the express trains on the Lexington Avenue line.[18]

He has written an autobiography with help from a ghost writer, called Bloomberg by Bloomberg (1997, ISBN 0-471-15545-4).