David Rubenstein: Co-founder of The Carlyle Group

David Rubenstein: Co-founder of The Carlyle Group

Business Owner · Hedge Funds & Investing

Washington, D.C.

David Rubenstein co-founded the private equity firm Carlyle Group, owns the Baltimore Orioles and chairs institutions including the National Gallery of Art and the Council on Foreign Relations.

About David Rubenstein: Co-founder of The Carlyle Group

David Mark Rubenstein (born August 11, 1949, in Baltimore) is an American billionaire businessman, philanthropist and former government official. He is a co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm based in Washington, D.C., and the principal owner of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles. He chairs the National Gallery of Art, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., is a former board chairman at Duke University and the Smithsonian Institution, was co-chair at the Brookings Institution, and in 2022 became chair of the University of Chicago's board of trustees. According to Forbes his net worth was about $4.1 billion as of May 2026. He chaired the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts from 2010 until 2025, when he was replaced by President Donald Trump. Rubenstein grew up as an only child in a Jewish family in Baltimore; his father was a US Postal Service file clerk and his mother a homemaker who began working in a dress shop when he was six. Recalling the city's religious segregation, he said he was 13 before he realized everyone in the world was not Jewish. He graduated from Baltimore City College in 1966, then from Duke University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude in political science in 1970, and earned his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1973. Sources: English Wikipedia (David Rubenstein, accessed September 2026).

Basic Information

Co-founder and co-chairman, The Carlyle Group; principal owner, Baltimore Orioles

Company Details

The Carlyle Group

Private Equity, Sports Ownership