Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter (Hebrew: יצחק "אייק" פרלמוטר; born December 1, 1945)[citation needed] is an Israeli-American billionaire[3] businessman and financier.
[4][5][6] He has a political relationship with Donald Trump,[7] and acted as an unofficial advisor in his presidential administration, overseeing the Department of Veterans Affairs.
[8] He emigrated to America, arriving in New York City with only $250, and he earned a living standing outside Jewish cemeteries in Brooklyn, leveraging his Hebrew skills to lead funeral services for tips.
[2][8] Later he sold toys and beauty products on the streets of New York City, which eventually evolved into selling surplus stock and end-of-line items at a profit.
[9] Perlmutter had a close relationship with the management of toy manufacturer Coleco Entertainment Corporation as he had been purchasing unsold inventory from them for some time.
[9] In 1988, he saw an opportunity as Coleco struggled under its debt due to the advent of the personal computer which impacted the sale of video games.
[11] When the Marvel Group went bankrupt in 1996, protracted legal battles over control of the company followed between Perlmutter, Arad, Carl Icahn, and Ronald Perelman.
[17] In March 2023, Perlmutter was laid off from his position running Marvel Entertainment, as part of a restructuring to fold the division's operations into Disney proper.
[25] Issac and Laura Perlmutter are also supporters and contributors to The Innocence Project which exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
[1] In January 2016, according to Donald Trump, Isaac intended to donate $1 million to the presidential candidate's wounded veterans initiative at Drake University.
[31] In 2024, Issac and Linda Perlmutter donated $10 million to the newly formed Right for America super-PAC led by Sergio Gor in support of the Trump campaign.
[32] In April 2017, Perlmutter was categorized by The New York Times as one of the "Clubgoers" among twenty people whom President Trump consults "outside the White House gates".
[34] The author of the article obtained "hundreds of documents" through the Freedom of Information Act that show the three were in daily contact with the agency, "reviewing all manner of policy and personnel decisions" and that "they prodded the VA to start new programs, and officials travelled to Mar-a-Lago at taxpayer expense to hear their views.
[36] Perlmutter had in the past taken great pride in never having given an interview in his career, despite being in the public eye due to his many court battles and bankruptcy fights.