[3] Milken's compensation while head of the high-yield bond department at Drexel Burnham Lambert in the late 1980s exceeded $1 billion over a four-year period, a record for U.S. income at that time.

[15] His classmates included future Disney president Michael Ovitz[16] and actresses Sally Field and Cindy Williams.

Through his Wharton professors, Milken landed a summer job at Drexel Harriman Ripley, an old-line investment bank, in 1969.

He persuaded his new boss, fellow Wharton alumnus Tubby Burnham, to let him start a high-yield bond trading department—an operation that soon earned a 100 percent return on investment.

[18][19][20] By the mid-1980s, Milken's network of high-yield bond buyers (notably Fred Carr's Executive Life Insurance Company and Tom Spiegel's Columbia Savings & Loan) had reached a size that enabled him to raise large amounts of money quickly.

This money-raising ability also facilitated the activities of leveraged buyout (LBO) firms such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and of the so-called "greenmailers".

[21][22] Supporters, like George Gilder in his book Telecosm (2000), state that Milken was "a key source of the organizational changes that have impelled economic growth over the last twenty years.

Most striking was the productivity surge in capital, as Milken ... and others took the vast sums trapped in old-line businesses and put them back into the markets.

[28] Dan Stone, a former Drexel executive, wrote in his book April Fools that Milken was under nearly constant scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1979 onward due to unethical and sometimes illegal behavior in the high-yield department.

Stone claims that Milken viewed the securities laws, rules, and regulations with a degree of contempt, feeling they hindered the free flow of trade.

[29] Harvey A. Silverglate, a defense attorney who represented Milken during the appellate process, disputes that view in his book Three Felonies a Day: "Milken's biggest problem was that some of his most ingenious but entirely lawful maneuvers were viewed, by those who initially did not understand them, as felonious, precisely because they were novel – and often extremely profitable.

Later that year, Giuliani began considering an indictment of Drexel under the powerful Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

Drexel management, concluding that a financial institution could not possibly survive a RICO indictment, immediately began plea bargain talks.

However, talks collapsed on December 19, when Giuliani made several demands that went beyond even what those who believed an indictment would destroy the firm were willing to accept.

[24] Only a day later, Drexel lawyers discovered suspicious activity in one of the limited partnerships Milken set up to allow members of his department to make their own investments.

At the time, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts was in the midst of a leveraged buyout of Storer, and Drexel was lead underwriter for the bonds being issued.

[clarification needed] One charge was that Boesky paid Drexel $5.3 million in 1986 for Milken's share of profits from illegal trading.

Shortly afterward, Milken resigned from Drexel and formed his own firm, International Capital Access Group.

[46][47] In February 2013, the SEC announced that they were investigating whether Milken violated his lifetime ban from the securities industry.

[49] In June 2018, it was reported that some of president Donald Trump's supporters and friends, including Kevin McCarthy, Rupert Murdoch, Sheldon Adelson, Elaine Chao, and Rudy Giuliani, the onetime federal prosecutor whose criminal investigation led to Milken's conviction, were urging the president to pardon Milken.

Each season in the weeks leading up to Father's Day, Milken visits many ballparks and appears on TV and radio broadcasts during the games.

In 2003, Milken launched a Washington, D.C.–based think tank called FasterCures, which seeks greater efficiency in researching all serious diseases.

[59][60][61] Ayad Akhtar's 2016 play Junk, set during the bond trading scandals of the 1980s, is partly based on Milken's "fall from grace".

The age-old quest of Diogenes in a post-Milken universe.” Milken is married to Lori Anne Hackel, whom he had dated in high school.

[64] He reportedly follows a vegetarian-like diet rich in fruits and vegetables for its health benefits and has co-authored a vegan cookbook with Beth Ginsberg.