Sir Leonard Valentinovich Blavatnik[a] (Ukrainian: Леонард Валентинович Блаватник; born June 14, 1957) is a Soviet/Ukrainian-born British-American businessman and philanthropist.

[4] Blavatnik made his initial fortune, alongside other Russian oligarchs, in the privatization of state-owned aluminum and oil assets after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[5] He owns most of Warner Music Group and has stakes in several publicly traded assets via his privately held Access Industries Holdings.

[10] He attended Moscow State University of Railway Engineering but did not complete his coursework due to the family's request for emigration visas.

[6] Through Access Industries Holdings, Blavatnik owns most of Warner Music Group and has stakes in several publicly traded assets.

The 1999 lawsuit was resolved in 2003 when British Petroleum acquired TNK for $8 billion, forming TNK-BP, one of the largest oil companies in Russia.

[21] The deal also made Len Blavatnik, Mikhail Fridman, German Khan and Viktor Vekselberg, who controlled half of TNK-BP, billions of dollars.

[17] In 2022, Blavatnik sold his stake in Russian aluminum producer United Co. Rusal International PJSC, divesting his last major asset in the country, according to Bloomberg News.

[27] In August 2005, Access Industries bought petrochemicals and plastics manufacturer Basell Polyolefins from Royal Dutch Shell and BASF for $5.7 billion.

In 2010, Blavatnik sued JPMorgan Chase after losing $100 million by allegedly following Morgan's advice three years earlier to buy mortgage securities with AAA credit ratings.

[36][37] Though WMG was the World's third largest record company[38] and considered a "trophy asset", it was also laden down with debt[39] and struggling to find an answer to online music piracy.

[51] He was an early investor in Rocket Internet and Beats Music, helped finance fashion designer Tory Burch, and, in 2013, paid $115 million for wireless spectrum in Norway.

[54] DAZN specialise in buying rights to broadcast sports including football, boxing and Formula 1 motor racing, outside of their domestic markets.

[55] In May 2018, DAZN signed an eight year, $1 billion deal with Eddie Hearn's Matchroom Boxing to stream fights on a new U.S. subscription service.

[56] In June 2018, DAZN paid €600 million for domestic screening rights for Italian Serie A football matches in a three-year deal.

[59] Chief Executive Officer Simon Denyer explained: "With revenues dropping and investment not available, we can only survive by making some hard decisions.

"[59] In late 2020, DAZN unveiled a slate of original documentary programming featuring global sporting icons such as Ronaldo and British boxer Anthony Joshua.

Some outlets have suggested Blavatnik has been involved in reputation laundering through his philanthropic projects, and that he maintains close connections to Viktor Vekselberg, an oligarch sanctioned by the US government.

[78] Writing in The Sunday Times, Richard Morrison responded to the criticism, stating that "it's both discourteous and self-defeating for people in the UK arts scene to regard every source of non-government funding, whether corporate or philanthropic, as potentially 'tainted'.

[90] In 2016, Blavatnik supported the $1.2 billion regeneration of rundown section of Miami's South Beach area into a centre for arts and culture.

[96] In 2018, Harvard Medical School announced a $200 million donation from Blavatnik's foundation to sponsor research, investments in data science, and the creation of subsidized lab space for biotech startups.

[77] In December 2021, Blavatnik donated half of the £15 million required to prevent the sale and dispersal of the Honresfield Library on the open market.

The collection, originally created by Lancashire Industrialists William and Alfred Law, includes Brontë family manuscripts, Jane Austen letters, and handwritten poems by Robert Burns.

The center had signed a letter calling for ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza War and learned of other organizations similarly defunded by the foundation.

[107] In 2011, Blavatnik donated to both US President Barack Obama and his Republican Party rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

[113] Blavatnik and his American wife, Emily, also donated to Democratic Party candidates Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, and Hillary Clinton.

[118] Blavatnik was involved in a long-standing WhatsApp group chat that existed from October 2023 until early May 2024, involving some of the United States' most powerful business leaders, with the stated goals of "chang[ing] the narrative" in favor of Israel and "help[ing] win the war" on U.S. public opinion following Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel.

[119] Members of the 2023-24 WhatsApp group chat, including Blavatnik, also held a video call in April 2024 with New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, in an effort to, according to reporting by The Washington Post, "pressure Columbia’s president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police to the campus" to shut down criticism of Israel's offensive military operations in Gaza, which many campus protesters, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, civil servants, and governments around the world have alleged to be genocide.

[121][122] He owns a Grade II listed building on "the most expensive street in the world", Kensington Palace Gardens (number 15), which is valued at £200 million.

[124] Blavatnik is a friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has donated to a private legal defense fund for Donald Trump.