Question 1

True or false: Schwarzman’s 60th birthday party cost $3 million and featured a performance by Rod Stewart.

Accepted Answer

True. The 2007 bash at the New York Public Library included Rod Stewart and a cake shaped like his Park Avenue apartment, costing an estimated $3 million.

Question 2

True or false: Schwarzman donated over $500 million to Yale University, his alma mater.

Accepted Answer

False. He gave $150 million to Yale for a student center, but his biggest donation—$350 million—went to MIT, not Yale.

Question 3

True or false: Schwarzman’s net worth once dropped by over $1 billion in a single day during the 2008 crisis.

Accepted Answer

True. Blackstone’s IPO in 2007 was near the peak; by 2008, shares fell over 90%, wiping out billions from his personal fortune.

Question 4

True or false: Stephen Schwarzman served as a U.S. Navy SEAL before entering finance.

Accepted Answer

False. He never served in the military. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and worked at Lehman Brothers before co-founding Blackstone.

Question 5

True or false: Schwarzman founded a scholarship program for Chinese students to study at Tsinghua University.

Accepted Answer

True. In 2013, he donated $100 million to launch the Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua, modeled after the Rhodes Scholarship.

Question 6

True or false: Stephen Schwarzman named his private equity firm Blackstone after his own initials.

Accepted Answer

False. Blackstone was named after co-founders Peter Peterson and Stephen Schwarzman—'Schwarzman' is German for 'black', and 'Peter' means 'stone'.

Question 7

True or false: Schwarzman once famously compared raising taxes on the wealthy to Hitler invading Poland.

Accepted Answer

False. He actually compared a proposed carried-interest tax hike to Hitler’s invasion of Poland in a 2010 interview, causing major backlash.

Question 8

True or false: Schwarzman’s personal art collection includes works by Picasso and Basquiat worth over $100 million.

Accepted Answer

True. He owns major pieces like Picasso's 'Le Sauvetage' and Basquiat's 'Untitled' (1982), among other high-value contemporary works.

Stephen Schwarzman Trivia Questions