It was a record moneymaking year for hedge fund managers.
The 25 managers who earned the most last year made a total of $36.65 billion, the highest amount in the quarter-century Institutional Investor has been publishing its definitive ranking.
This easily exceeds the $31.7 billion the 25 biggest earners made in 2020, the previous record. This year’s total averages to more than $1.4 billion per manager.
The top earner for 2025 is TCI Fund Management’s Chris Hohn, who has the new Rich List record for the most earned by an individual in one year: $4.9 billion. Hohn’s hedge fund was up 27.8 percent and now manages more than $77 billion. This is the second time in three years Hohn has topped the ranking.
No. 2 earner Steven Cohen of Point72 Asset Management tied the previous record of $4 billion.
To qualify for the 2025 list, an individual needed to earn at least $470 million, a record minimum. Alex Sacerdote of Whale Rock Capital Management ranks with this amount.
This year’s hedge fund managers are a familiar cast of characters. This is because under II’s methodology, we count an individual’s gains on their own capital invested in their funds plus their share of the fees. If they are below their high-water mark, we still count gains on their own capital to get a snapshot in time.
The ranking underscores the power of compounding: The more personal capital you have invested in your fund, the easier it is to make the kind of money that lands you on the top-25 list.
Ten of the hedge fund managers who qualified for this year’s ranking made more than $1 billion. Six, or nearly 25 percent, have roots in Julian Robertson Jr.’s Tiger Management.
Notably, nine of the highest earners posted gains in their hedge funds that lagged the S&P 500 in 2025. Of course, for those who are not just stock pickers, this is not their preferred benchmark. In fact, the five highest earners after Hohn are not exclusively stock pickers or equity long-short managers, but rather are multistrategy specialists or eclectic investors who roam the global markets seeking the best opportunities.
They include Cohen as well as Nos. 3–6 Izzy Englander of Millennium Management, Appaloosa Management’s David Tepper, Ken Griffin of Citadel, and D.E. Shaw’s David Shaw — all frequent members of the Rich List.
These managers deftly maneuvered through a volatile and sometimes chaotic political landscape that included President Donald Trump’s on again, off again tariff policy; speculation about the direction of interest rates and the future of the Federal Reserve chairman; the war in Gaza; the ongoing Russian assault on Ukraine; the ramifications of the Epstein files; and stubbornly high prices.
TCI Fund Management
$4.9 billion
Chris Hohn tops the Rich List for the second time in three years after generating a 27.8 percent gain in his main fund. As a result, London-based TCI Fund Management, which currently manages $77 billion, generated $18.9 billion in profits for investors — more than any other fund ever, according to LCH Investments’ annual survey of the 20 most profitable hedge fund managers in a single year. TCI has made a total of $40 million net of fees for investors over the past three years. It is essentially a concentrated long-only portfolio of mostly Europe- and U.S.-listed stocks, once known for its activism. TCI held ten U.S. stocks in the second quarter, nine in the third, and nine in the fourth. Among its biggest winners last year were GE Aerospace, the surviving entity of General Electric after a major restructuring; Microsoft; and Safran, a multinational aerospace and defense company traded on the Paris stock exchange and a long-held activist position for TCI. GE Aerospace accounted for more than one-quarter of the firm’s $53.6 billion U.S. portfolio at year-end. Hohn’s Children’s Investment Fund Foundation supports climate action, child health, and reproductive rights.
Point72 Asset Management
$4 billion
Multistrategy maven and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen may have let his two prized free agents — Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz — get away, but it clearly wasn’t because he couldn’t afford to pay them. The soon-to-be casino mogul, who is building an $8 billion casino and entertainment complex next to Citi Field in partnership with Hard Rock International, ranks second on the Rich List after his hedge fund rose 17.5 percent. He has made $7.2 billion in just the past two years. Point72 has 190-plus investment teams managing more than $45.7 billion focused on five broad strategies: fundamental equity, systematic, global macro, venture capital, and private credit. In September 2024, Cohen stepped back from trading his own book at the hedge fund but remained the firm’s co–chief investment officer. Cohen told iConnections last year that Point72 was building a private credit business within the flagship fund, and at some point may raise a separate fund for it. But contrary to media reports, Point72 does not have a separate private credit fund and has not set a fundraising goal.
Millennium Management
$3.5 billion
Izzy Englander slipped to third place from the top spot on last year’s Rich List. He has ranked in the top three for six straight years and made the list in 24 of its 25 years. In 2025, Millennium’s multistrategy fund rose 10.5 percent, below its annualized average return of 14 percent since its 1989 inception. These days, Millennium has about 330 investment teams managing more than $86.3 billion with an emphasis on five broad strategies: fundamental equity, equity arbitrage, fixed income, commodities, and quantitative strategies. Last year, it sold approximately 15 percent of the firm to investors, including some of its largest institutional investors, for about $2 billion. The firm was valued at $14 billion, according to Business Insider, citing a memo sent to employees. “Izzy and the management team believe that the actions we have taken further reinforce the durability of the firm, support the longevity of our business, and position Millennium for continued growth and success in the future,” the memo stated.
Appaloosa Management
$3.3 billion
David Tepper nearly doubled his earnings from 2024 after posting a strong 23.3 percent gain. The eclectic investor — the bulk of the firm’s capital belongs to Tepper — benefited from a 75 percent-plus return from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding. Appaloosa’s largest U.S.-listed long all year, the stock accounted for roughly 15 percent of the $7.4 billion U.S. common stock long portfolio. Appaloosa cut the stake by more than 20 percent in the fourth quarter. It also profited from a sizable position in chip giant Nvidia. In the fourth quarter, Appaloosa tripled its investment in chip maker Micron Technology, now its fourth-largest long. Tepper’s Carolina Panthers professional football team also had a better year, making the playoffs for the first time since 2017. Tepper owns Charlotte FC of Major League Soccer as well.
Citadel
$2.4 billion
Ken Griffin’s Wellington Fund enjoyed a strong second half of the year, but still finished 2025 up just 10.2 percent, its worst result since 2018. It had added less than 1 percent through May. Most of the multistrategy firm’s other funds fared better. Tactical Trading jumped 18.6 percent, Global Equities 14.5 percent, and Fixed Income 9.4 percent. Citadel suffered earlier in the year from the market volatility sparked by President Trump’s mercurial tariff policy, which Griffin has publicly criticized. The huge Republican donor recently told a conference that Trump’s Greenland ambition “deserves consideration” but stressed the U.S. should not use military or economic pressure to acquire the nation. He supports Trump’s bid to curb illegal immigration and end many regulations. Griffin Catalyst is a civic engagement initiative encompassing the manager’s philanthropic and community impact efforts. Griffin has donated more than $2.5 billion over the years. In 2025, he gave $50 million to Success Academy Charter Schools to bring them to Miami, and $15 million each to the National Constitution Center and Mount Sinai Medical Center. At the beginning of 2026, Citadel managed more than $65 billion.
D.E. Shaw
$2 billion
David Shaw has not been involved in his hedge fund firm’s day-to-day operations for more than a decade, but his ownership stake enables him to continue ranking among the top earners. Last year, D.E. Shaw Composite Fund, the firm’s largest multistrategy fund, picked up 18.5 percent, more or less in line with the previous year, and D.E. Shaw Oculus Fund, the macro-oriented multistrat fund, rose 28.2 percent. Last year’s gains were positive across systematic and discretionary investment strategies. The firm, which is led by a seven-person executive committee, had more than $85 billion in investment capital as of December 1, 2025, across hedge fund, private market, multiasset class, and active equity investment strategies. On October 1, the firm launched Cogence Fund, a new multistrategy hedge fund focused on discretionary, fundamental investment strategies. It also raised $1.3 billion for D.E. Shaw Diopter Fund II, its latest private credit fund.
Coatue Management
$1.8 billion
Coatue posted just a 13.9 percent increase in its main long-short fund, trailing the broad market indices even in a big year for tech-oriented hedge funds in general. It was Belgium-born Tiger Cub Philippe Laffont’s worst performance in the past four years. Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Amazon, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing were top holdings throughout 2025. Coatue also has a large venture capital arm. It has a sizable stake in AI juggernaut Anthropic and in mid-February 2026 co-led the $30 billion Series G funding round for the privately held company, valuing it at a staggering $380 billion. Coatue initially invested in Anthropic in 2025. In a CNBC interview shortly after the financing was announced, Laffont said Anthropic could become a trillion-dollar market cap company. “The world is moving to a token economy,” he said, comparing the building of intelligence networks to the building of railroads and other infrastructure. He singled out both Advanced Materials for its “protection for this buildout” and Google parent Alphabet, calling it one of three major players in the large language model field.
Rokos Capital Management
$1.4 billion
Rokos Capital Management was up 21 percent last year, one of a number of macro funds to report gains of 20 percent or more. The London-based hedge fund, which had surged 31 percent in 2024, deftly traded amid global market volatility. Last year, Chris Rokos told clients he would return capital and cap the fund at $20 billion, the first time the firm has returned capital since its inception in 2015. The onetime Brevan Howard founding partner and star trader is also increasing the firm’s management fee and performance fee to 25 percent over several years.
D1 Capital Partners
$1.4 billion
Tiger Grandcub Dan Sundheim oversaw one of the top-performing Tiger-related funds in 2025, with a 33.7 percent gain in his public stock portfolio. D1, which emphasizes industrial and consumer stocks, last year was led by No. 2 long Applovin, a high-flying advertising software company that nearly doubled in price. Sundheim’s private portfolio surged 39 percent thanks in large part to a sizable stake in SpaceX, which is now valued at about $800 billion. SpaceX currently makes up 45 percent of D1’s private portfolio. Last year, the firm began seeking to raise more than $1 billion for its first private equity fund. In 2025, D1 made at least 11 new private investments, according to Crunchbase. The firm currently manages more than $30 billion; 60 percent of the capital is invested in private companies. Instacart parent Maplebear has been D1’s largest publicly traded long since the company went public in 2023.
Pershing Square Capital Management
$1.1 billion
Bill Ackman posted a 20.9 percent gain last year, the fourth time since 2020 he has climbed more than 20 percent. His biggest winners were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises he has held on to since 2013 and which got a huge boost when President Trump announced plans to take them public. The stocks more than doubled in 2025, but Ackman figures an IPO would dilute his ownership and prefers they stay in conservatorship. Pershing Square also enjoyed a 67 percent return from Alphabet and a 35 percent gain from Uber Technologies. Last year, the firm boosted its stake in Howard Hughes Holdings, a real estate company that Pershing Square controls, to 46.9 percent. Ackman is its executive chairman. Late last year, Howard Hughes announced it would buy Vantage Group Holdings, an insurance company owned by private equity firms The Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman. When the deal closes this year, it could transform Howard Hughes into a diversified holding company along the lines of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
Caxton Associates
$915 million
In 2025, macro manager Andrew Law posted his best results in three years. His flagship Caxton Global Investment fund rose 16 percent, and Caxton Macro, the fund he manages, surged 21 percent. The London-based funds’ performance was driven by bets on copper, gold, U.K. banks, European defense stocks, and Japanese rates. Caxton was founded in 1983 by legendary investor Bruce Kovner, and Law took control at the end of 2013. Today the firm manages about $20 billion. In the fourth quarter, the value of its U.S. long portfolio jumped more than 40 percent to about $5 billion, excluding the value of put and call options, representing about 25 percent of the firm’s total assets. Caxton also established three significant new positions in chip giant Advanced Micro Devices, oil giant BP, and Barrick Mining.
Perceptive Advisors
$900 million
Talk about a reversal of fortune. An 82 percent gain makes Joseph Edelman 2025’s top Rich List performer in what was a spectacular recovery year for life sciences and biopharma hedge funds. Perceptive was down nearly 15 percent through May, then swung almost 100 percentage points in the final months of the year. The performance was led by Celcuity, which swelled more than sevenfold last year after receiving positive results in its Phase 3 trials for a breast cancer drug. The stock was a top-four holding for the firm in the second half of the year. Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, a top-five holding all year, roughly doubled in price in 2025. Last year, Perceptive Capital Solutions Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, agreed to merge with Freenome Holdings, a privately held company developing blood tests for early cancer detection. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026.
Element Capital Management
$900 million
Jeffrey Talpins posted a 24 percent gain last year, one of many macro managers to generate returns exceeding 20 percent. Element calls its strategy Modern Macro, which includes three main drivers of alpha: macro fundamental, systematic, and relative value. It returned $6 billion to clients at the end of 2024 — its fifth asset return — and was running $3 billion at the beginning of 2025. Assets under management peaked at $18 billion in 2019. Element now mostly manages capital for its principals. In a client letter, it said it was transitioning to “Element 2.0,” which will focus on “diversification, innovation, and growth,” according to Hedgeweek. The Jeffrey M. Talpins Foundation is dedicated to conserving open spaces and wildlife, strengthening U.S. economic and foreign policy, and fostering educational opportunities for children, among other strategic initiatives.
Tiger Global Management
$800 million
Tiger Global’s long-short fund posted a market-lagging 7.9 percent return in 2025. It is one of several hedge funds with a modified high-water mark. Chase Coleman’s other funds fared much better. The long-only fund climbed 22.9 percent, suggesting the firm was badly hurt by its short positions. The crossover fund, which invests in private markets and public securities, gained 23.8 percent. In recent quarters, Tiger Global has mostly taken a buy-and-hold approach, rarely adding to or reducing its stakes in its largest holdings. Microsoft was its biggest U.S.-listed long for most of the year, but Alphabet grabbed the top spot at year-end after Tiger Global cut its stake in Microsoft by more than 16 percent at the same time that Alphabet’s stock surged. Tiger Global currently manages $50 billion, including its substantial private equity business.
Viking Global Investors
$800 million
Viking’s long-short fund may have lagged most of the other Tiger Cubs that qualified for the Rich List this year. But it was the first to recover its losses from the stock market’s sell-off a few years ago. In 2025, O. Andreas Halvorsen’s long-short fund picked up 8.5 percent. The long-only fund was the firm’s top performer, gaining 22.1 percent, suggesting the hedge fund was hurt by its shorts. The Viking Global Opportunities Hybrid fund rose 18 percent. It invests in both private and public companies. The Viking Global Opportunities Drawdown fund, which invests only in private companies, increased by 8.3 percent. Viking had a big bet on financials for most of the year, but in the fourth quarter, it slashed its large positions in both Capital One Financial and JPMorgan Chase by more than 60 percent and in Schwab by more than 16 percent. Viking manages more than $57 billion. Of that sum, $18 billion-plus is managed by the private equity strategy group, which currently has more than 75 portfolio companies. Viking made 15 new private investments in 2025, according to Crunchbase. Over the years, most of the private investments have come in biotech, health care, therapeutics, and related areas.
Lone Pine Capital
$800 million
Tiger Cub Stephen Mandel Jr. posted gains of 23 percent in his long-short fund and 29 percent in his long-only fund. Meta Platforms, chip maker TSMC, retail electricity and power generation company Vistra, Microsoft, and Amazon were top holdings all year for the firm. In the fourth quarter, it fully liquidated its previous No. 1 stake in Meta. Mandel no longer runs Lone Pine on a day-to-day basis but remains a member of the management committee. These days, David Craver and Kelly Granat serve as co–chief investment officers. In February, Lone Pine promoted investor Rahul Anne to portfolio manager, the first appointment of this kind in more than a decade, Business Insider emphasized. The move was made after three senior investors — Samuel Harland, Zachary Gleser, and Kevin Salimian — left the firm. Lone Pine currently manages about $19 billion.
Elliott Management
$800 million
Multistrat specialist Elliott Management, founded in 1977 by Paul Singer, is best known for its activism. Most recently, it has targeted Norwegian Cruise Line, asserting it is trailing its competitors in a strong period for cruise bookings. Earlier in 2026, Elliott slashed its stake in Southwest Airlines, satisfied the company is making the right changes. In February, two Elliott-appointed directors resigned from the airline’s board, although three others remain. Southwest is Elliott’s fourth-largest U.S. long; the firm owns almost 9 percent of the outstanding shares. Also in 2025, Elliott won two seats on the board of oil refinery Phillips 66, currently its second-largest U.S.-listed long. In 2025, the now $79.8 billion Elliott was up about 7 percent. It was led in part by No. 1 long Triple Flag Precious Metals, which roughly doubled in price.
Discovery Capital Management
$750 million
Tiger Cub Robert Citrone capped a remarkable three-year run with a 36.8 percent gain in 2025. Last year’s performance was the “worst” year of the past three, following surges of 52 percent in 2024 and 48 percent in 2023. Discovery is a combination macro and fundamental global equities fund that invests heavily in both developed and emerging markets. Last year, it was led by equities, which kicked in 27.6 percent to gross return, and credit, with 9.5 percent. Regionally developed markets and emerging markets were net positive contributors, led by Nigeria and Latin America in emerging markets and the U.S. in developed markets. Thematically, artificial intelligence added the most to returns (10.9 percent), followed by Nigeria (6.6 percent) and Latin America (6.2 percent). “AI was a broad theme for us, encompassing long and short views across hyperscalers, semis, hardware, software, power, and infrastructure . . . all the areas impacted by the new technology developments,” Discovery explained in its December monthly report.
Jericho Capital Asset Management
$650 million
Josh Resnick’s Jericho funds are among the hottest over the past three years. The $5 billion flagship fund was up 49.3 percent gross last year, and the $1 billion Special Opportunities fund surged a gross 109.3 percent. Most investors pay up to 1.5 percent in management fees and an incentive fee of 20 to 30 percent. Last year’s performance fell short of the firm’s record 2024, when the flagship fund reported a 74.3 percent gross gain and Special Opportunities grew an eye-popping 150.75 percent. Last year, both funds made money on their short positions. On the long side, Jericho was boosted by AppLovin, a stock it has owned since the fourth quarter of 2023. Last year, the shares more than doubled. Jericho also saw a 39 percent rise in Nvidia, another major holding it initially bought in 2023. Jericho runs a concentrated portfolio in general. At the end of the fourth quarter, it held just 30 different U.S.-listed long positions in its roughly $9.6 billion U.S. stock portfolio. In the fourth quarter, Jericho established a new large position in Alphabet, which immediately became its third-largest long.
Balyasny Asset Management
$640 million
Dmitry Balyasny enjoyed quite a year in 2025. His multistrategy firm, Balyasny Asset Management, posted a 16.7 percent gain in its main hedge fund, the best performance since 2020. And last year, Balyasny himself was awarded the Institutional Investor Hedge Fund Lifetime Achievement award. The firm, which manages more than $32 billion, emphasizes five strategies: long-short equities; fixed income and macro; commodities; multiasset arbitrage, which includes convertibles, merger arbitrage, long-short credit, and other businesses; and quant and systematic strategies, where Balyasny — as he told II last year — thinks most competition will lie in the future. “We’re trying to disintermediate ourselves and use AI as much as possible, use quantitative and systematic resources and strategies because that’s where the world is going,” he said in the II profile. Reuters reported that Balyasny said recently at a conference in Abu Dhabi that he believes artificial intelligence is the largest tail risk heading into 2026 and could surprise on either the downside or the upside. He is concerned that AI hyperscalers could cut spending if monetization falls short, whereas an unexpected rapid expansion could trigger job losses with workforce retraining unable to keep pace. “Either of those scenarios could create some instability, but the more likely outcome is that it continues to grow the way that it has,” he said.
Sachem Head Capital Management
$600 million
Scott Ferguson posted a 40.6 percent gain last year, his best performance since 2020. Ferguson, who previously spent nine years at Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management, runs a concentrated value-oriented portfolio and sometimes engages in activism. At year-end, Sachem Head had $4.3 billion in its U.S. stock portfolio, spread over just 20 issues. The hedge fund was led in 2025 in part by a large stake in Talen Energy, whose stock jumped more than 84 percent. In the fourth quarter, Sachem Head boosted its position by 72 percent. The hedge fund was also driven by GDS Holdings, which develops and operates data centers in China and picked up 52 percent, and cloud communications company Twilio, which rose 29 percent. Last September, Ferguson was appointed to the board of directors of food service distribution company Performance Food Group. In the fourth quarter, Sachem Head established new large positions in telecom giant EchoStar — which became the largest U.S. long, responsible for more than 13 percent of the hedge fund firm’s U.S. stock portfolio — and online used-car company Carvana.
AQR Capital Management
$560 million
Quant giant AQR Capital Management, founded by Cliff Asness, had a stellar 2025. The firm posted a 19.6 percent gain in AQR Apex Strategy, a multistrategy fund that focuses on stock selection, macro, and arbitrage capabilities — outdoing its 16.6 percent five-year annualized return. AQR Helix Strategy, an alternative trend-following strategy, jumped 18.6 percent. AQR Delphi Long-Short Equity Strategy picked up 16.8 percent. It invests long in low-risk, high-quality stocks, and invests short in high-risk, low-quality stocks. AQR Adaptive Equities Strategy added 24.4 percent. Today the firm manages $189 billion in alternatives, mutual funds, and UCITs, offering long-only and alternative strategies spanning equity, macro, arbitrage, and multistrategy. AQR, an abbreviation for Applied Quantitative Research, was founded in 1998 by Asness, David Kabiller, Robert Krail, and John Liew. Krail retired in 2019. Today Asness serves as chief investment officer. One third of AQR’s professional staff holds PhDs.
Schonfeld Strategic Advisors
$560 million
Steven Schonfeld posted a 16.5 percent gain in the Schonfeld Fundamental Equity fund and a 12.5 percent rise in the Schonfeld Strategic Partners fund. The firm deploys a multimanager platform across quantitative, fundamental equity, tactical, discretionary macro, and fixed-income trading strategies. Every core strategy generated positive returns in 2025. In quant, returns were driven primarily by statistical arbitrage strategies, with a significant contribution from the Asia-Pacific region. Tactical strategies capitalized on strong capital markets and heightened volatility across developed and emerging markets. Schonfeld started the firm in 1988 as a family office to manage his own capital with $400,000 he had earned as a stockbroker. He began accepting outside capital in 2015 and today manages $18 billion. In 2025, the firm launched a systematic fund.
Tudor Investment Corp.
$500 million
Legendary macro pioneer Paul Tudor Jones II posted a small 4.6 gain in his main hedge fund, Tudor BVI Global Fund. But the firm’s internal capital portfolio was up 10 percent, more than double what the hedge fund investors enjoyed. The largest U.S. common stock longs at year-end were three exchange-traded funds that bet on either the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq Composite as well as Magnificent Seven stocks Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon. In an interview last year with CNBC, Jones asserted that artificial intelligence “clearly posts an imminent security threat in our lifetimes to humanity,” noting that at least one modeler at a recent exclusive tech conference believes there is a 10 percent chance that half of humanity could be wiped out by some sort of accident. “Someone can biohack a weapon to take out humanity,” Jones agreed.
Whale Rock Capital Management
$470 million
Alex Sacerdote capped a strong three-year run with a 27 percent rise in his long-short fund and a 45 percent gain in his long-only fund. As impressive as the year was for the tech-focused hedge fund firm, it wasn’t as good as the previous two. Whale Rock was led by several major holdings that enjoyed explosive gains: Electronics manufacturing services company Celestica roughly tripled, AppLovin more than doubled, and chip giant Broadcom rose roughly 50 percent. In the fourth quarter, Alphabet became the top U.S. long after Whale Rock initiated the position in the third quarter. At year-end, the firm managed about $10 billion and held just 32 different U.S.-listed common stocks. Sacerdote’s father, Peter Sacerdote, was formerly head of corporate finance and chairman of the private equity group at Goldman Sachs.
