Hungarian-American billionaire businessman and philanthropist
George Soros's philanthropy and support for progressive causes has made him the subject of many
conspiracy theories, most of them originating from the
political right.[1][2] Veronika Bondarenko, writing for Business Insider said: "For two decades, some have seen Soros as a kind of puppet master
secretly controlling the global economy and politics."[3]The New York Times describes the allegations as moving "from the dark corners of the internet and talk radio" to "the very center of the political debate" by 2018.[4] Professor Armin Langer has noted that Soros is "the perfect
code word" for conspiracy theories that unite
antisemitism and
Islamophobia.[5]
One prominent Soros-related conspiracy theory is that he is behind the
European migrant crisis or importing migrants to European countries. Under the current second premiership of
Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian government has spent millions of dollars on a poster campaign demonizing Soros. According to anthropologist
Ivan Kalmar, "[m]any of his most outspoken enemies inside and outside Hungary saw him as leading an international
cabal that included other
Jews such as the
Rothschilds, as well as
Freemasons and
Illuminati."[6][7]
American conservatives picked up on the thread in the late 2000s, spearheaded by
Fox News.
Bill O'Reilly gave an almost ten-minute monologue on Soros in 2007, calling him an "extremist" and claiming he was "off-the-charts dangerous."[9]
1990s
In 1997, during the
Asian financial crisis, the
prime minister of Malaysia,
Mahathir Mohamad, accused Soros of using the wealth under his control to punish the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for welcoming
Myanmar as a member. With a history of
antisemitic remarks, Mahathir made specific reference to Soros's Jewish background ("It is a Jew who triggered the currency plunge"),[13] and implied Soros was orchestrating the crash as part of a larger Jewish conspiracy. Nine years later, in 2006, Mahathir met with Soros and afterward stated that he accepted that Soros had not been responsible for the crisis.[14] In 1998's The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered, Soros explained his role in the crisis as follows:
The financial crisis that originated in Thailand in 1997 was particularly unnerving because of its scope and severity ... By the beginning of 1997, it was clear to Soros Fund Management that the discrepancy between the trade account and the capital account was becoming untenable. We sold short the Thai baht and the Malaysian ringgit early in 1997 with maturities ranging from six months to a year. (That is, we entered into contracts to deliver at future dates Thai baht and Malaysian ringgit that we did not currently hold.) Subsequently, Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia accused me of causing the crisis, a wholly unfounded accusation. We were not sellers of the currency during or several months before the crisis; on the contrary, we were buyers when the currencies began to decline—we were purchasing ringgits to realize the profits on our earlier speculation. (Much too soon, as it turned out. We left most of the potential gain on the table because we were afraid that Mahathir would impose capital controls. He did so, but much later.)[15]
2010s
The 3 April 2016 release date of the
Offshoregate (
Russian: "Офшоргейта") was just before
Vladimir Putin's largest annual press conference, the All-Russian Popular Front (ONF) "Truth and Justice" in
St. Petersburg (
Russian: Медиа-форум Общероссийского народного фронта (ОНФ) «Правда и справедливость» в Санкт-Петербурге) which was held 4–7 April 2016.[16] During this press conference, Vladimir Putin stated that
Julian Assange's
WikiLeaks told him that George Soros and his
Open Society Foundations had provided funding for Offshoregate and, on behalf of the
Kremlin,
Dmitry Peskov stated that Offshoregate was intended to denigrate (
Russian: "вброс") "Putin and Russia personally".[17][18]
After being ousted from office in the wake of the
Panama Papers scandal of 2016, Icelandic Prime Minister
Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson accused Soros of having bankrolled a conspiracy to remove him from power.[19][20] It was later noted that Soros himself had also been implicated in the Panama Papers, casting doubt on the prime minister's theory.[21]
Soros's opposition to
Brexit led to a front page on the United Kingdom's
Conservative Party-supporting newspaper The Daily Telegraph in February 2018, which was accused of antisemitism for claiming he was involved in a supposed "secret plot" for the country's voters to reverse the
2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.[22] While The Daily Telegraph did not mention that Soros is Jewish, his opposition to Britain leaving the
European Union had been reported elsewhere in less conspiratorial terms.[23]Stephen Pollard, editor of The Jewish Chronicle, said on
Twitter: "The point is that language matters so much and this is exactly the language being used by antisemites here and abroad."[24][25] In October 2019, the then
Leader of the House of Commons,
Jacob Rees-Mogg, accused Soros of being the "funder-in-chief" of the
Remain campaign, and was subsequently accused of antisemitism by opposition
MPs.[26]
In 2018,
Black Cube supported
Viktor Orban's virulently
anti-Semitic re-election campaign gaining taped telephone conversations of individuals associated with George Soros who was actively opposing Orban's re-election.[39][40][41][42] According to
Tamar Zandberg, Hungary was “carrying out an antisemitic campaign against Soros” and that
Benjamin Netanyahu, which she stated that his
Likud has dangerous ties to "extreme right-wing parties in Europe", openly supported Orban's anti-Semitic re-election campaign.[43] She stated that Black Cube's support for Orban is an "Israeli embarrassment."[43]
In October 2018, Soros was accused of funding the
Central American migrant caravans heading toward the United States.[44][45][46] The theory that Soros was causing Central American migration at the southern US border apparently dates back to late March 2018.[47] The October 2018 strain of the theory has been described to combine antisemitism,
anti-immigrant sentiment, and "the specter of powerful foreign agents controlling major world events in pursuit of a hidden agenda", connecting Soros and other wealthy individuals of Jewish faith or background to the October caravan.[47] Then-US president
Donald Trump was among those promoting the conspiracy theory.[48] Both
Cesar Sayoc, the perpetrator of the October 2018 attempted bombings of prominent
Democratic Party officials, and Robert Bowers, the perpetrator of the
Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, referred to this conspiracy theory on social media before their crimes.[49][50]
In November 2018, Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denounced Soros while speaking about the
political purges in Turkey, saying: "The person who financed terrorists during the
Gezi incidents is already in prison. And who is behind him? The famous Hungarian Jew Soros. This is a man who assigns people to divide nations and shatter them."[51]
In November 2019, attorney
Joseph diGenova, who is known for promoting conspiracy theories about the
Department of Justice and the
FBI,[60] asserted on
Fox News without evidence that Soros "controls a very large part of the career foreign service of the United States State Department" and "also controls the activities of FBI agents overseas who work for
NGOs – work with NGOs. That was very evident in Ukraine."[61] Soros's
Open Society Foundations described diGenova's claims as "beyond rhetorical ugliness, beyond fiction, beyond ludicrous" and requested that Fox News provide an on-air retraction of diGenova's claims, and stop providing diGenova with a platform.[62] Although the network never publicly announced it had banned him, diGenova has not appeared on Fox following the incident.[63] In September 2020, diGenova suggested that Fox News is also controlled by Soros.[63]
2020s
A study by
Zignal Labs found that unsubstantiated claims of involvement by Soros were one of three dominant themes in
misinformation and conspiracy theories around the 2020
George Floyd protests, alongside claims that Floyd's murder had been faked and claims of involvement by
antifa groups.[64] The
Anti-Defamation League estimated that over four days after Floyd's murder, negative Twitter messages about Soros increased from about 20,000 per day to about 500,000 per day.[65]
When
Donald Trump was indicted by Manhattan district attorney
Alvin Bragg in 2023, numerous Republicans claimed that Bragg was "bought and paid for" by Soros. This claim was promoted and spread by Trump himself as well as
Ron DeSantis, Senator
J. D. Vance, Senator
Ron Johnson, Texas Governor
Greg Abbott, Representative
Anna Paulina Luna, and Representative
Paul Gosar, who called Bragg a "Soros D.A.".[72] The only actual connection is that Soros donated to progressive
criminal justice reform group
Color of Change, which contributed to Bragg's campaign. Soros was only one of many donors to Color of Change, and he had no contact with Bragg, whom he has never met.[73][74]
^Langer, Armin (2021). "The eternal George Soros: The rise of an antisemitic and Islamophobic conspiracy theory". Europe: Continent of Conspiracies. Routledge.
ISBN978-1-003-04864-0.
^Langer, Armin (2021). "The eternal George Soros: The rise of an antisemitic and Islamophobic conspiracy theory". Europe: Continent of Conspiracies. Routledge.
ISBN978-1-003-04864-0.
^Kalmar, Ivan (2020). "Islamophobia and anti-antisemitism: the case of Hungary and the 'Soros plot'". Patterns of Prejudice. 54 (1–2): 182–198.
doi:
10.1080/0031322X.2019.1705014.
S2CID219021241.
Madisson, Mari-Liis; Ventsel, Andreas (2020). "Strategic Soros-themed conspiracy narratives in politics, marketing and alternative knowledge". Strategic Conspiracy Narratives. Routledge.
ISBN978-0-429-02038-4.
Plenta, Peter (2020). "Conspiracy theories as a political instrument: utilization of anti-Soros narratives in Central Europe". Contemporary Politics. 26 (5): 512–530.
doi:
10.1080/13569775.2020.1781332.
S2CID225047260.
Pintilescu, Corneliu; Magyari, Attila Kustán (2020). "Soros conspiracy theories and the rise of populism in post-socialist Hungary and Romania". Conspiracy Theories in Eastern Europe. Routledge.
ISBN978-0-429-32607-3.