Is this AI's LEAST likely cheerleader? Blackstone's 77-year-old Republican megadonor CEO has pumped half a billion into cutting-edge tech - even though he still uses a flip phone and says 'email' is his favorite app

When you think of leaders in artificial intelligence, you probably picture sneaker-wearing, baby-faced Silicon Valley-types like Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman.

But one of the the biggest funders of AI is 77-year-old Blackstone CEO and Republican megadonor Steve Schwarzman - who says his favorite app is 'email.'

Schwarzman, who was still using a basic flip phone at the time, became enamored with AI in 2015, when the co-founder of Alibaba told him that AI is the wave of the future and would change job functions, drug development and education.

Since then, Schwarzman has invested more than $500 million dollars in the advancement of AI and has donated millions of dollars to Yale University to establish a center for AI advancements and to create the University of Oxford's Institute for Ethics in AI.

Steve Schwarzman has invested billions of dollars in AI technology, but still says his favorite app is email

Steve Schwarzman had a brief stint in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1970 before he headed to Harvard Business School

In the midst of concerns over an AI takeover, Schwarzman, who is worth $37.8 billion, is now working to promote AI and reassure the public that the technology is meant to assist with daily tasks, not to replace humans. 

Schwarzman was in China trying to raise money for his Schwarzman Scholars program - a fully funded, one-year master's degree and leadership program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China - when he chanced an encounter with Jack Ma, the co-founder of ecommerce giant Alibaba.

The pair spent 90 minutes discussing the topic while on a bus to Beijing, when Ma told him that the effects of AI was 'going to be astonishing.'

'There's a lot of bad stuff that could happen, like huge unemployment as you replace people with machines,' Ma told Schwarzman, Forbes reported.

When Schwarzman returned to the U.S., he met with then-MIT President L. Rafael Reif and asked him why AI hadn't taken off in the U.S. when China's AI development was already well under way.

'I discussed with him the risk element, and the fact that the U.S. was falling behind, just because we haven't invested enough money compared to China,' Schwarzman told the outlet.

'It's not just AI. There are other technologies that have big security issues. Quantum [computing], for example, has the ability to break all encryption. Imagine a world where somebody can destroy your banking system and destroy your electric grid and take control of your nuclear codes. 

'This whole computer science revolution has a lot of issues.' 

Reif told him computers weren't powerful enough yet to adopt AI technology, but that they were working to rapidly catch up.

'I was concerned that the U.S. was falling behind on the most promising new technology in generations,' Schwarzman told The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, Schwarzman was also building what is today's leading investment firm, Blackstone, and Reif would frequently visit his Park Avenue office to discuss his plans to introduce AI at MIT.

Reif said he planned to hire twice as many MIT faculty and professors with experience in computing, biology, and business who also used AI to assist with their research.

Schwarzman was taken with the idea and donated $350 million of the $1.2 billion needed to fund the program.

Yet despite pioneering AI to make the world more equal, the United Nations accused Schwarzman of his company contributing to the global housing crisis in 2019.

The UN said Blackstone was exploiting tenants and 'wreaking havoc' in communities by drastically raising rent costs and charging heavy fees for repairs that has 'devastating consequences' for many tenants, The Guardian reported at the time.

Blackstone denied the accusations, saying the report contained 'numerous false claims, significant factual errors and inaccurate conclusions.'

Steve Schwarzman worked to pioneer AI technology, eventually donating $350 million in MIT's $1.2 billion plan to add faculty with AI experience

AI is on the rise and so are concerns that it will replace humans in the workforce

Schwarzman has also been criticized over remarks he made in 2010 when he compared then-President Barack Obama's plans to raise taxes to the conditions in Nazi Germany.

During a board meeting at a nonprofit organization, Schwarzman told board members that the tax hike is 'war.'

'It's like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939,' he said.

Schwarzman later apologized for the comparison.

And although Schwarzman has been praised for his commitment for advancing AI by strategic investments in MIT, the New York Public Library, and the $7 billion data center alliance with Digital Reality Trust, it has been overshadowed by other, less admirable actions.

Schwarzman was part of a Blackstone Group forum established in 2016 to offer their economic expertise to then-President Donald Trump.

"You're doing profound things,' Schwarzman told Trump at a White House event in early 2017.

He added that Trump was 'taking on enormous, embedded issues and ... with the kind of effort that can be marshaled, you can do amazing things.'

Blackstone is desperately trying to shift Manhattan office tower at HALF price after 26-storey building's value tumbled from $605MILLION to $150MILLION 

Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman has waved goodbye to three-quarters of the firm's investment in New York's iconic 1740 Broadway

The group disbanded in 2017 after it came under pressure to disassociate itself from Trump after the then-president equated white supremacists with Black Lives Matter protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

Then, in February 2021, only one month after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, the Wall Street billionaire was criticized for backing Republicans who had attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Schwarzman was the third largest donor for Republicans who opposed the 2020 election and was the eighth largest mega-donor in the 2020 election cycle. 

In stark contrast to his political ties, Schwarzman has also provided extensive donations toward AI funding and played an important role in the push for the Chips and Science Act in 2022 – which set aside funds for quantum computing and AI.

Since hiring the first data scientist at Blackstone the same year he met Ma, that number has grown to 50 people who analyze data using AI to help the firm predict the demands for apartments and analyze data on LinkedIn to know which life-science companies might need employees and lab space.

'AI is going to dramatically change the ways we live and work,' said Blackstone's president and CEO Jon Gray.

'As a firm, we're devoting enormous resources to capturing this opportunity – both to protect investors' capital and generate higher returns.'

The company says it is not only investing in 'companies that harness AI, but also in the businesses that enable it.'

Schwarzman and Gray's efforts come amid global concerns that AI is growing so rapidly, it will eventually replace people in the workplace, but Schwarzman once again advocated for AI, saying there is nothing to worry about.

'Everybody involved in this technology [AI] that I know certainly wants the technology to be regulated to some degree because they don't want bad outcomes and they want all these good outcomes,' Schwarzman told Private Equity.

He continued: 'It's not supposed to replace you. It's supposed to make you more effective faster.'