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Steve Cohen
Status
Born in 1956 (age –).
Criminal status: No personal convictions; SAC Capital Advisors pleaded guilty to securities fraud and wire fraud in 2013
Summary
Steve Cohen founded SAC Capital Advisors in 1992 and built it into one of the most profitable hedge funds on Wall Street, returning approximately 25 percent annually to investors. In 2013, SAC Capital pleaded guilty to criminal securities fraud and paid a then-record USD 1.8 billion fine after prosecutors found that eight employees had engaged in insider trading under Cohen's watch. The firm was shut down as an investment adviser and Cohen converted it to the family office Point72 Asset Management, which he relaunched as an outside-capital hedge fund in 2018 after his two-year regulatory bar expired.
Point72 manages over USD 50 billion in assets as of 2026, and Cohen earned an estimated USD 3.4 billion in 2025, topping Bloomberg's ranking of the world's highest-paid hedge fund managers. He and his wife Alexandra run the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, which has distributed over USD 1.5 billion since 2001, with a focus on veterans' mental health, Lyme disease research, and education. Cohen purchased 95 percent of the New York Mets in 2020 and received approval in December 2025 for an USD 8.1 billion casino and entertainment complex adjacent to Citi Field, with construction preparation underway as of early 2026 and completion targeted for 2030.
Business Relationships
Cohen has maintained a long-standing rivalry and benchmark competition with Ken Griffin of Citadel. He serves on the board of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His casino project is developed in partnership with Hard Rock International.
Ownership
Cohen is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Point72 Asset Management, which manages over USD 50 billion in assets as of 2026; he handed the president title to co-CIO Harry Schwefel in April 2026 as the firm built out a five-person executive committee. He owns approximately 95 percent of the New York Mets baseball franchise. His casino venture, Metropolitan Park, is being developed in partnership with Hard Rock International on 50 acres adjacent to Citi Field; Cohen paid a USD 500 million upfront licensing fee to the New York State Gaming Commission for a 30-year operating license and has pledged USD 1 billion in community benefits tied to the license, including a rebuild of the 7 line's Mets-Willets Point station.
Family & Heirs
Cohen married Alexandra Garcia in 1992. Alexandra leads the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation as its president. Cohen has eight children from two marriages — three from his first marriage to Patricia Finke, and five with Alexandra. His son Robert served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan; Robert's service was a direct motivation for Cohen's founding of the Cohen Veterans Network.
Evidence
2008-01-01 - 😇 - Cohen Foundation gives USD 50M to Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital for pediatric emergency care
2013-02-25 - 😇 - Cohen Foundation gives USD 17M to NYU Langone — then-largest private donation for veterans PTSD and TBI research
2013-11-04 - 😈 - SAC Capital Advisors pleads guilty to securities fraud, pays USD 1.8B criminal fine — largest insider trading penalty in history
2014-11-07 - 😈 - SAC Capital portfolio manager Martoma sentenced 9 years for USD 275M insider trading scheme; DOJ filing names Cohen as directing related trades
2015-12-15 - 😇 - Cohen Foundation gives USD 6.5M to Bay Area Lyme Foundation, then-largest private donation ever for Lyme disease research
2016-01-08 - 😈 - SEC bars Cohen from supervisory hedge fund role until 2018 for failing to prevent insider trading under his watch
2017-08-03 - 😈 - UK Financial Conduct Authority rebuffs Point72's bid for regulatory approval to manage outside money in the UK
2018-02-12 - 😈 - Point72 sued for gender discrimination: women underpaid, passed over for promotions, subjected to hostile work environment
2018-04-01 - 😇 - Following internal WilmerHale culture review, Cohen implements expanded parental leave and creates Chief Inclusion and Engagement Officer role
2020-07-13 - 😇 - Cohen Veterans Network provides mental health care to post-September 11 veterans and families through nationwide clinics
2023-09-20 - 😇 - Cohen Foundation gives USD 6.2M to Mount Sinai to expand Long Lyme disease clinical research
2024-03-20 - 😇 - Cohen Foundation gives USD 116.2M to LaGuardia Community College — largest-ever gift to a US community college
2025-10-23 - 😇 - Cohen Foundation gives USD 5M to The Menopause Society for digital-innovation phase of a healthcare training initiative
2025-12-22 - 😇 - Cohen Foundation awards up to USD 1.1M to Westchester Community College Foundation for tuition-free nursing and CNA pathways
2026-02-02 - 😈 - Cohen's name appears 113 times in DOJ Epstein files; photo of Cohen in documents; spokesperson denies any relationship
2026-02-02 - 😇 - Cohen Veterans Network marks 10-year anniversary serving 100,000 veteran clients with 1 million clinical sessions
Analysis
Cohen's record is defined by the SAC Capital insider trading scandal on one side and a philanthropic and compliance-rebuilding operation of unusual scale on the other. The SAC Capital guilty plea represented the largest insider trading penalty in history and the first criminal conviction of a major hedge fund entity in a generation — prosecutors called the scheme "substantial, pervasive and on a scale without known precedent in the hedge fund industry."
The DOJ's Martoma sentencing document describes Cohen receiving the call from his portfolio manager, then personally directing the liquidation of USD 700 million in Elan and Wyeth positions before adverse drug trial results were made public. The SEC found he ignored clear warning signs and encouraged the physician contact who supplied the inside information. Though never personally convicted, Cohen sat at the center of what prosecutors characterized as a firm-wide insider trading culture: eight SAC employees were convicted or pleaded guilty under his watch, and the UK's Financial Conduct Authority separately rebuffed Point72's bid to manage outside money in Britain in the years that followed.
Point72's post-SAC rebuild included a large compliance buildout — Palantir-built surveillance software, a 25 percent expansion of compliance headcount, and veto power for the compliance team over new hires.
Separately, after a 2018 gender-discrimination lawsuit, an internal review led by WilmerHale's Jamie Gorelick produced expanded parental leave and a new Chief Inclusion and Engagement Officer role. Gorelick said Cohen embraced the changes "in a way that is rare for a corporate leader."
The philanthropy operates at a different scale than is typical, with the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation having distributed over USD 1.5 billion since 2001. The Cohen Veterans Network launched in 2016 with a USD 275 million pledge and by 2026 had served 100,000 veteran clients and delivered 1 million clinical sessions across 22 clinics in 21 states. Recent gifts include a USD 5 million grant to The Menopause Society in October 2025 and a USD 1.1 million grant to fund tuition-free nursing pathways at Westchester Community College in December 2025.
The USD 116.2 million gift to LaGuardia Community College in 2024 was the largest ever made to an American community college. This is genuine philanthropic impact at scale. The two sides of Cohen's record exist in parallel: the charitable giving and compliance rebuild do not reverse the harms done through insider trading, nor does the insider trading negate the clinics built for veterans.
Questions
What moral weight should massive philanthropy and a rebuilt compliance program carry against documented financial crimes? The USD 1.8 billion SAC Capital fine and the USD 275 million in insider trading profits affected investors and market participants who had no direct benefit from Cohen's later charitable giving. The philanthropy was funded in part by the fortunes made during the SAC era, including during years when insider trading was occurring.
Cohen's appearance 113 times in the Epstein files and the existence of a photo in the DOJ's documents raises questions his spokesperson denies. A separate DOJ document release detailing broker efforts to show Epstein's townhouse names Cohen as a broker-cited prospective buyer, though the broker involved said he never knew Cohen was a potential buyer and Epstein himself expressed doubt that Cohen was a real prospect. The files do not document a confirmed personal relationship, but the volume of references suggests Epstein tracked Cohen closely.
Redemption Arc
Cohen's trajectory since the SAC Capital guilty plea has combined a large compliance rebuild with steadily expanding philanthropy. Point72's post-settlement compliance buildout and its 2018 workplace reforms came alongside a philanthropic program that has kept growing: the LaGuardia gift in 2024, the CVN 10-year milestone and new nursing-education gift in 2025-2026 show sustained, growing, and institutionalized giving. At the same time, winning an USD 8.1 billion casino and entertainment complex adjacent to Citi Field after years of community negotiations and lobbying suggests the same tactical ambition that characterized his years in finance.