Carl Icahn

Icahn is a native of New York City and grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens. He graduated from Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry in 1957 with a degree in philosophy; while there, he won the philosophy department’s prize for the best thesis and worked in the business department of The Daily Princetonian. After graduating, he entered New York University’s medical school at his mother’s request, left after two years, and then joined the Army.⁠[1][1][2][2]

In 1961, Icahn began working on Wall Street, starting as a stockbroker at Dreyfus Corporation.⁠[1][3]

In 1968, Icahn bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and founded Icahn & Co., a securities firm focused on arbitrage and options trading.⁠[3][1]

From 1978, Icahn began taking very large and sometimes controlling positions in individual companies, and since 1980 he has acted as an activist investor: after buying a company’s stock or debt, he pushes for change through means ranging from negotiating with the board to proxy fights, tender offers and acquiring control. In the 1980s, he became known for threatening to take over companies, forcing management to make concessions, and then selling his shares at a profit.⁠[1][4][4][5]

Since 1984, Icahn has served as chairman and a director of Starfire Holding Corporation, a privately held holding company, and of several of its subsidiaries.⁠[4]

In 1985, Icahn was locked in a three-way contest with TWA’s management and Texas Air, led by Frank Lorenzo, for control of the financially troubled Trans World Airlines (TWA). In August that year, TWA’s machinists’ and pilots’ unions chose to back Icahn to avoid a takeover by Lorenzo, who had used bankruptcy proceedings to void union contracts: the unions agreed to pay cuts, with the pilots accepting a 22% salary reduction, while Icahn promised to let employees own 20% of the company’s stock and receive 20% of its profits.⁠[6][6][6][6][6]

In December that year, TWA’s heavy losses made it difficult for Icahn to finance the purchase of 52% of the airline’s stock, and he sought to renegotiate the agreement. He ultimately took control of TWA, the only big-name company he ever actually bought.⁠[7][8][5]

In 1990, Icahn acquired control of American Real Estate Partners, the predecessor of Icahn Enterprises. On September 24 that year, he filed his initial Schedule 13D reporting ownership of more than 5%, and since 1990 he has been chairman of its general partner.⁠[9][9][4]

TWA filed for bankruptcy protection in January 1992, and Icahn admitted at the time that buying TWA had been one of his worst investments. In January 1993, seven years after taking control of TWA, the 56-year-old Icahn resigned as chairman and, under an agreement to sell the airline to its creditors and employees, surrendered his stock. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) estimated TWA’s pension shortfall at about $1.2 billion and threatened to sue Icahn; as a settlement, he agreed to lend TWA $200 million and to contribute to its pension funds over the following years. On resigning, he said that during his tenure many airlines that had been in better shape than TWA was in 1986 had gone out of business.⁠[5][5][5][5][5][5]

In 1999, Icahn donated $20 million to his alma mater, Princeton University, to fund the Carl C. Icahn Laboratory for its Institute for Integrated Genomics.⁠[2][1]

On August 8, 2007, American Real Estate Partners acquired the investment management business of Icahn’s private funds, and in September that year it changed its name to Icahn Enterprises. Since then, Icahn’s principal occupation has been managing private investment funds, including Icahn Partners, as chief executive officer of the subsidiary Icahn Capital LP.⁠[10][10][4][4]

In November 2012, Icahn donated $200 million to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, which was then renamed the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, while its genomics institute was renamed the Icahn Genomics Institute. He also serves as a trustee of the School of Medicine and of Mount Sinai Hospital.⁠[2][1][1]

At the end of 2012, Icahn Enterprises began buying shares of the nutrition company Herbalife and has long been its largest shareholder. Icahn said Herbalife was out of favor with the market at the time for a number of reasons and called the investment a quintessential example of his activist strategy. In May 2018 and August 2020, IEP sold part of its stake by tendering shares into Herbalife’s self-tender offers; after selling about 14.7 million shares in 2020, it still held about 20.5 million shares, or about 15.5% of the company.⁠[11][12][11][12]

On January 23, 2014, Icahn released an open letter to Apple shareholders calling Apple an undervalued “no brainer” and arguing that the company held too much cash. He proposed a $50 billion share repurchase during fiscal 2014 and urged shareholders to support the related Proposal No. 10. On May 18, 2015, he wrote again to Apple chief executive Tim Cook, praising management’s operating performance.⁠[13][13][13][13][13][14][14]

On December 21, 2016, President-elect Donald Trump named Icahn special adviser on regulatory reform, to advise on rolling back federal regulations; the transition team said he would not serve as a federal employee. Trump said Icahn “was with me from the beginning.”⁠[8][8][8]

On August 18, 2017, Icahn released a letter to Trump confirming that they had agreed he would no longer act as special adviser on regulatory reform. He said he had never held a formal position or a policymaking role in the administration, had never had access to nonpublic information or profited from his position, did not believe his role presented conflicts of interest, and had discussed with the president only broad policy matters affecting the refining industry. He said he was ending the arrangement because he did not want partisan bickering about his role to cloud the administration.⁠[15][15][15][15][15]

In December 2017, Jonathan Christodoro, a former Icahn employee whom Icahn had placed on Xerox’s board, resigned over disagreements, and Icahn announced that he would nominate four director candidates at the 2018 annual meeting.⁠[16][16]

On October 31, 2018, Icahn affiliates holding about 9.3% of Dell Technologies’ Class V common stock (DVMT) sued Dell in the Delaware Court of Chancery, alleging that it had refused to provide books and records related to the proposed DVMT merger.⁠[17][17][17]

In November 2021, Icahn Partners, an affiliate of IEP, nominated ten candidates, including Andrew Teno, for election to the board of Southwest Gas Holdings at its 2022 annual meeting.⁠[18][18][18]

On March 29, 2022, Icahn wrote to W. Rodney McMullen, chairman and chief executive of the supermarket chain Kroger, criticizing the company for allowing its supply chain to use gestation crates for sows and other industrialized practices, which he said caused unnecessary suffering.⁠[19][19]

On May 2, 2023, the short seller Hindenburg Research announced a short position in Icahn Enterprises, alleging that the company was overvalued and used money from new investors to pay distributions to existing ones in a “Ponzi-like” structure, and saying that Icahn had taken on too much leverage in the face of sustained losses. IEP and Icahn denied the allegations and said they would fight back; in August that year, IEP cut its quarterly distribution from $2 to $1 per unit.⁠[20][20][21][21]

On July 10, 2023, Icahn entered into an amended and consolidated margin loan agreement with his lenders covering about $3.7 billion in outstanding principal, pledging about 320 million IEP depositary units and $2 billion of his interests in the IEP funds as collateral.⁠[9][9][9]

In 2023, Icahn launched a proxy fight at the gene-sequencing company Illumina over its acquisition of GRAIL, nominating Andrew Teno and others as directors; Teno joined Illumina’s board in May 2023. In an open letter to shareholders on December 18 that year, Icahn said the first goal of his campaign had been achieved with the departure of former chairman John Thompson and former chief executive Francis deSouza, that the second goal was to push Illumina to divest GRAIL, and that the next step was to remove what he called “legacy conflicted directors.”⁠[20][4][22][22][22]

On August 19, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission found that, beginning in 2005, Icahn had entered into dozens of margin loan agreements secured by IEP units but did not describe them in his Schedule 13D filings until July 2023, and did not attach the guaranty agreement as required, in violation of Section 13(d)(2) of the Securities Exchange Act and Rule 13d-2(a). From the end of 2018, the IEP securities he had pledged amounted to roughly 51% to 82% of those outstanding, and individual loan principals ranged from $150 million to $1.8 billion. Without admitting or denying the findings, Icahn agreed to cease and desist and to pay a civil penalty of $500,000, while IEP paid $1.5 million; the SEC said it had considered his cooperation with its investigation in accepting the settlement. Icahn said he had disclosed the loan agreements to his advisers; the SEC said this did not excuse his violations.⁠[9][9][9][9][23][9][9][9][23][9][9][9]

As of October 2026, Icahn is chairman of the general partner of Icahn Enterprises, and he and his affiliates own about 86% of IEP’s outstanding depositary units. He previously served as chairman of Tropicana Entertainment (2010–2018), CVR Energy (2012–2018), CVR Refining (2013–2018) and American Railcar Industries (1994–2014), and as non-executive chairman of Federal-Mogul (2008–2015), among other roles.⁠[4][4][4][4][4][4][4]

Companies in which he has taken large stakes or pursued shareholder campaigns over the years include RJR Nabisco, Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, Western Union, Viacom, USX, Marvel, Revlon, Time Warner, Yahoo!, Motorola, Biogen, Dell, Netflix and eBayeBayeBay Inc. is an online marketplace company headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar; it started out with person-to-person online auctions and listed on Nasdaq in 1998. As of the end of 2025, it had 135 million active buyers, and its platform’s gross merchandise volume in 2025 was nearly $80 billion.Open the full entry.⁠[1][1][1]

Icahn’s philanthropy focuses mainly on medicine, education and child welfare. He established seven Icahn Charter Schools in the Bronx, New York; at Choate Rosemary Hall, a boarding school where he previously served as a trustee, he endowed a scholars program and funded a science building; through the Children’s Rescue Fund, which he founded, he funded the construction of Icahn House, a 65-unit complex for homeless families in the Bronx; he also funded Icahn Stadium, a track and field stadium on Randall’s Island, and has served as a trustee of Lincoln Center.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

Icahn Enterprises: Official website: https://www.ielp.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]

Personal website: https://carlicahn.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[24]

X: Public account: https://x.com/Carl_C_Icahn (opens in a new window)⁠[13]