Leon Black
Co-founder and former CEO of Apollo Global Management (subject of ongoing U.S. Senate Finance Committee investigation)
Document Connections (4)
Per the U.S. Senate Finance Committee's ongoing investigation (Sen. Ron Wyden, ranking member), Leon Black paid Jeffrey Epstein approximately $170 million between 2012 and 2017 — purportedly for tax and estate planning advice. The Finance Committee's findings established the figure was approximately $12 million higher than the $158 million previously identified by an Apollo board internal investigation conducted by the Dechert law firm. Released documents in the Epstein file set support these payment figures.
In March 2026, Senator Wyden publicly questioned Black over new revelations from the released Epstein files indicating Epstein may have served as a 'fixer' regarding women who were paid tens of millions of dollars in exchange for their silence, and that Black may have funneled hush money payments to women using Epstein as a middleman. The Wyden inquiry also raised questions about apparent surveillance of women.
Black resigned as CEO and chairman of Apollo Global Management in 2021 after the Dechert LLP report quantified the magnitude of his payments to Epstein. He was the highest-profile resignation in the financial sector tied to the Epstein matter at that time.
In March 2026, a federal judge ruled Black could be deposed in the civil lawsuit brought by Epstein survivors against Bank of America. Bank of America subsequently reached a $72.5 million settlement with the Epstein survivors in March 2026 — a settlement attorneys reportedly secured in part by using Wyden's Senate Finance findings to demonstrate the bank had willfully ignored Black's massive, unexplained payments to Epstein.