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$20Mn Birthday Party : Stephen Schwarzman Celebrates His 70th

February 14, 2017

[Photo: BusinessInsider.com, GoogleEarth]

 

Ten years ago, financier Stephen Schwarzman was vilified for his lavish 60th bash that cost an estimated $5 million.

 

Over the weekend, he celebrated his 70th at his Palm Beach home with an event that some say cost as much as $20 million. The party featured live camels, trapeze artists and a performance by Gwen Stefani.

 

Whatever the cost, the event clearly fell in the category of over-the-top expensive. But, in the age of Donald Trump, Schwarzman's has elicited a collective yawn. Perhaps Mr. Trump has normalized conspicuous consumption. On Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, there were a few smuggled snapshots of the Schwarzman party passed around, but not much in the way of great viral outcry. A small band of protesters who tried to picket the party on Saturday night did not get anywhere close to it, nor was there much media pickup on the group’s message.

 

Mr. Trump’s election and the nominations of his cabinet of billionaires may draw ire from his critics, but the people who elected him - who draw largely from the middle and lower classes - appear nonplused by his, and other people’s, showy displays of wealth. Indeed, judging by various polls, much of the country aspires to live like Mr. Schwarzman and Mr. Trump.

 

While Mr. Trump himself did not attend the party, daughter Ivanka and husband, Jared Kushner, did. So did others from the administration, including Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Wilbur Ross, the nominee for commerce secretary. Other guests included everyone from the prominent financier Henry Kravis of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and fashion designer Donatella Versace to Susan George, executive director of the Inner-City Scholarship Fund in New York.

 

A friend of Mr. Schwarzman’s said that one of the lessons from the 60th birthday’s blowback was he was never going to satisfy his critics, and that he had to live his life on his own terms. At age 70, said the friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to express candid views, Mr. Schwarzman has given a lot back and does not need to placate everyone.

 

In truth, Mr. Schwarzman has become perhaps the most successful financier on Wall Street over the past decade, growing Blackstone to become the pre-eminent asset manager in the country, pulling far ahead of his private-equity rivals and turning his firm into one of the largest real estate investors in the world. And his generosity has extended to several nine-figure donations - that’s more than $100 million each - to Yale, the New York Public Library and a scholarship program modeled after the Rhodes for students from the United States to attend Tsinghua University in China.

 

How to Explain the Change in Perception?    According to the Pew report, “It is possible that individuals who see more conflict between the classes think that anger toward the rich is misdirected.” The data, the report said, did not indicate “growing support for government measures to reduce income inequality.”

 

Maybe that explains it. Or perhaps everyone who criticized Mr. Schwarzman a decade ago is now just too busy focusing on Mr. Trump.