Blackstone’s CEO took home a near-record US$1.24 billion in 2025
The payday underscores how the biggest alternative asset managers have insulated themselves from a rough spell in private equity
Published Mon, Mar 2, 2026 · 12:19 PM
[NEW YORK] Blackstone chief executive officer Steve Schwarzman took home US$1.24 billion last year, just shy of his record US$1.27 billion in 2022.
He collected US$1.1 billion in dividends alone from his roughly 20 per cent stake in the world’s biggest alternative asset manager, according to an annual filing on Friday (Feb 27). He earned an additional US$125.6 million, mostly through incentive fees and the share of fund profits known as carried interest.
Schwarzman’s earnings from the firm he co-founded about four decades ago have made him one of the world’s richest people, with a net worth of about US$44.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The payday underscores how the biggest alternative asset managers have insulated themselves from a rough spell in private equity, having diversified well beyond their roots into additional strategies such as credit, real estate and infrastructure.
But the executives also benefited as long-dormant deal markets began to thaw after the US Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates. Like some of its peers, Blackstone cashed out of more deals in 2025 than a year earlier.
President Jon Gray has predicted 2026 will be the “year of the IPO” and said that dealmaking is hitting escape velocity.
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Gray took home a total of US$302.6 million last year, including US$206.5 million of dividends and US$96.1 million of carried interest and stock awards.
Even as Schwarzman, 79, remains firmly in charge, Gray, 56, is shaping the firm into an investing superstore for a wide range of customers, including institutional and retail clients.
Gray is rallying the firm around thematic bets such as artificial intelligence and leading its efforts in creating new products for wealthy individuals and retirement accounts.
Alternative asset managers are vying for a slice of the roughly US$12 trillion sitting in Americans’ 401(k)s and other defined-contribution retirement plans, spurred in part by a White House order aimed at making it easier to include private assets in their funds. BLOOMBERG
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