Symbol of ’80s greed stands to profit from Trump tax break for poor areas
RENO, Nev. — In the 1980s, Michael Milken embodied Wall Street greed. A swashbuckling financier, he was charged with playing a central role in a vast insider-trading scheme and was sent to prison for violating federal securities and tax laws. He was an inspiration for the Gordon Gekko character in the film Wall Street.
Milken, 73, has spent the intervening decades trying to rehabilitate his reputation through an influential nonprofit think tank, the Milken Institute, devoted to initiatives “that advance prosperity.”
These days, the Milken Institute is a leading proponent of a new federal tax break that was intended to coax wealthy investors to plow money into distressed communities known as “opportunity zones.” The institute’s leaders have helped push senior officials in the Trump administration to make the tax incentive more generous, even though it is under fire for being slanted toward the wealthy.
Milken, it turns out, is in a position to personally gain from some of the changes that his institute has urged the Trump administration to enact. In one case, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin directly intervened in a way that benefited Milken, his longtime friend.
It is a vivid illustration of the power that Milken, who was barred from the securities industry and fined $600 million as part of his 1990 felony conviction, has amassed in President Donald Trump’s Washington. In addition to the favorable taxpolicy changes, some of Trump’s closest advisers — including Mnuchin, Jared Kushner and Rudy Giuliani — have lobbied the president to pardon Milken for his crimes, or supported that effort, according to people familiar with the effort.
While the Milken Institute’s advocacy of opportunity zones is public, Milken’s financial stake in the outcome is not.
The former “junk bond king” has investments in at least two major real estate projects inside federally designated opportunity zones in Nevada, near Milken’s Lake Tahoe vacation home, according to public records reviewed by the New York Times.