Timothy Franz Geithner (/ˈɡaɪtnər/; born August 18, 1961) is an American former central banker who served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013.

[2] As President of the New York Fed and Secretary of the Treasury, Geithner had a key role in government efforts to recover from the financial crisis of 2007–08 and the Great Recession.

At the New York Fed, Geithner helped manage crises involving Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and the American International Group; as Treasury Secretary, he oversaw allocation of $350 billion under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, enacted during the previous administration in response to the subprime mortgage crisis.

Geithner also managed the administration's efforts to restructure regulation of the nation's financial system,[3] attempts to spur recovery of the mortgage market and the automobile industry, demands for protectionism, tax reform, and negotiations with foreign governments on global finance issues.

[6] His father, a German American, was the director of the Ford Foundation's Asia program in New York during the 1990s, after working for the United States Agency for International Development in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

[7] During the early 1980s, Geithner's father oversaw the Ford Foundation's microfinance programs in Indonesia being developed by Ann Dunham Soetoro, Barack Obama's mother, and they met at least once in Jakarta.

[9] Her father, Charles Frederick Moore, Jr., served as vice-president of public relations for the Ford Motor Company from 1952 to 1964, and advised President Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as Nelson Rockefeller and George W. Romney, on their respective presidential campaigns.

[16] Her father, Albert Sonnenfeld, was a professor of French and Comparative Literature at Princeton University and a food critic;[17] her mother, Portia, died when Carole was 25, shortly after she was married.

"[30] Under questioning from Senator Chris Dodd, Geithner denied involvement in setting the share price of JPMorgan's purchase of Bear Stearns.

[34] Bear Stearns and JPMorgan chief executives Alan Schwartz and Jamie Dimon testified that Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke were aware of the amount being discussed and encouraged negotiators to keep the price low to avoid rewarding investors.

Geithner indicated that the government would not save Lehman and urged the executives to cooperate on an industry solution, warning that the crisis could spread to their own firms should a deal not be reached.

On September 13, AIG chief Robert B. Willumstad informed Geithner that the company would need to raise $40 billion and asked for government assistance in doing so.

On the morning of September, Geithner reiterated this decision at a meeting of Wall Street executives and requested that Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan organize an industry-based solution.

Following Lehman's bankruptcy filing, due to a slowdown in credit markets, the Primary Fund was unable to sell once liquid assets to meet rapidly mounting demands for the redemption of investments.

Geithner's New York Fed had been informed of the worsening situation at 7:50 that morning, and the next day rebuffed a request from the Primary Fund to assist it in making payments.

[65][66] The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac amounted a combined outflow of $620.3 billion in Treasury funds in the form of spending, investments, and loans.

[68][69] In early November 2008, a joint committee of the Federal Reserve, Ernst & Young, and AIG concluded that the bonus payments, which were in contracts predating the government takeover, could not be legally stopped.

Rep. Edolphus Towns, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued subpoenas for the records and scheduled hearings for late January.

Geithner defended the bailout of AIG and the payments to the banks, while reiterating previous denials of any involvement in efforts to withhold details of the transactions.

He told Yang that the U.S. attached great importance to its relations with China and that U.S.–China cooperation was essential in order for the world economy to fully recover.

[86] On June 1, 2009, during a question-and-answer session following a speech at Peking University, Geithner was asked by a student whether Chinese investments in U.S. Treasury debt were safe.

[89] In summer 2010, The New York Times said Geithner "is President Obama's point man in opposing the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy after their Dec. 31 expiration.

... [Geithner] has cited the projected $700 billion, 10-year cost of the tax cuts, and nonpartisan analyses that they do not stimulate the economy because the wealthy tend to save the additional money rather than spend it.

'I believe there is no credible argument to be made that the purpose of government is to borrow from future generations of Americans to finance an extension of tax cuts for the top 2 percent,' [he] said in a recent speech.

[97] In November 2009, Oregon Representative Peter DeFazio, speaking for himself and some fellow members of the Progressive Caucus, suggested that both Geithner and Lawrence Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, should be fired in order to curtail unemployment and signal a new direction for the Obama administration's fiscal policy.

[98] When Geithner appeared in front of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee that month, the ranking House Republican, Kevin Brady of Texas, said to the secretary, "Conservatives agree that, as point person, you've failed.

[103] In February 2016, it was announced that JPMorgan Chase would provide a line of credit to help Warburg Pincus executives invest in a new multibillion-dollar fund at the firm.

[106] On October 7, 2014, Geithner testified in Starr v. United States, a lawsuit alleging that the government cheated American International Group shareholders of $40 billion by demanding a 79.9% stake in the company.

[113] In April 2016, he was one of eight former Treasury secretaries who called on the United Kingdom to remain a member of the European Union ahead of the June 2016 membership referendum.

[114] Geithner was portrayed by Billy Crudup in the HBO film Too Big to Fail, and by Alex Jennings in the BBC TV movie The Last Days of Lehman Brothers.