Leon Black paid Jeffrey Epstein $158 million, and he was the one who asked Apollo's board to investigate the relationship.
Bill Cohan had never spoken to Black in a career covering Wall Street, and did not expect to for this book. He started with Apollo's current chief executive, Mark Rowan — and then Black called him.
"And I got a call out of the blue from Leon saying, you know, don't you want to talk to me?"
Cohan is the author of eight books on Wall Street, was an investment banker at Lazard before he wrote any of them, and worked at Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Television before returning to the studio as a guest.
I listened to the full segment so you can skip it. 15 minutes of audio, 10 minutes of reading.
Here are the 8 takeaways that matter.
👤 Guest: Bill Cohan, author of "Money to Burn," his eighth book on Wall Street, a former Lazard banker who covered Apollo as a young associate in the early 1990s
🎙️ Host: Tom Keene, who co-hosts Bloomberg Surveillance on Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg Television
📰 Published: 9 September 2026, on the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast feed
🟣 Apple Podcasts | 🔗 Episode page | ⏱️ 15 min | ✅ Time saved: 5 min
Key Takeaways
Black called Cohan out of the blue and then sat for roughly 10 long interviews, all on the record
Cohan had never spoken to him before, despite decades of covering Wall Street and working with Apollo
Black commissioned the investigation into his own relationship with Epstein
He told Cohan he did it because he is the only person who ever has, and because he did not think he had done anything wrong
The payments were far larger than first reported: $158 million, against an initial estimate of $50 million to $75 million
Epstein tried to work his way into Apollo itself and was rebuffed
He met Mark Rowan and Josh Harris and invited them to his mansion; a data dump of three million emails shows the approaches
Apollo's real story is Mark Rowan using Athene to build a private-credit business that competitors are now copying
Cohan says that, not Black and Epstein, is what "the rise of a new Wall Street" in the subtitle refers to
Black owns the finest art collection in private hands Cohan has ever seen, and most of it is in his townhouse
He paid a record price for one of the four versions of Munch's "The Scream," a painting tied to his own undergraduate thesis
Black's Wall Street career began with his father's suicide, not with ambition
He was a philosophy major who did not want to go into finance until the family fortune was wiped out
1. Black Called Him First
Keene asked what Cohan learned reporting the book. The first surprise was access.
Cohan said Black had always been an elusive and mysterious figure, and that despite all his years working on Wall Street and with Apollo he had never spoken to him. He began the book with Mark Rowan, now Apollo's chief executive.
Black volunteered himself, and Cohan did not ask why
"And I got a call out of the blue from Leon saying, you know, don't you want to talk to me?"
"And of course, the answer is yes."
"Oh, word to the wise. I don't ask why someone is talking to me when they are talking to me."
That call became a series of roughly 10 long conversations, all on the record, running from the beginning of Black's life forward
Cohan said he had formed opinions about Black himself before starting, particularly after the Dechert report on the Epstein relationship became public
He wrote a piece in Vanity Fair at the time saying how incredulous he was at the explanation given, and said he has now left readers to decide
2. He Ordered His Own Probe
Keene asked Cohan to explain what the Dechert report is, and Cohan gave the sequence.
After Epstein's death it became clear that Black had a long and complex relationship with him, and that the sums involved were larger than reported. Apollo's institutional investors were raising it on quarterly conference calls.
The Times' first estimate was low by a factor of two or more
"The New York Times wrote a piece saying it was between $50 and $75 million. It turned out to be $158 million."
Cohan added that some people put the figure at $170 million, and said you can quibble
Black, then chief executive and chairman, asked Apollo's special committee to engage the law firm Dechert to investigate his own relationship with Epstein
Cohan asked him why, and got two reasons: that he is the only person who has ever commissioned such an investigation of himself, and that he did not believe he had done anything wrong
"So he doesn't believe he's done anything wrong."
The report exonerated him of wrongdoing, though Cohan noted the innuendo persists and named Ron Wyden and Jim Comer as looking into it
His caveat was that one of the two principals is dead, so much remains unknown
3. Epstein Went After Apollo
Keene asked whether other Apollo leaders knew about the relationship, and whether it extended past Black himself.
Cohan said the relationship went back many years, and pointed to Black putting Epstein on the board of his family foundation as an unusually intimate step.
Once Epstein had a hold on Black, he tried to extend it to the firm
"So he would go over and meet with Mark Rowan or he'd go over and meet with Josh Harris or invite them over to his mansion."
The approaches are visible in what Cohan called the data dump of three million emails
His reading is that Rowan and Harris were onto the game and declined to engage, either for Apollo or personally, though Epstein tried repeatedly
By that point, Cohan said, Black was already in the web
4. Athene Made the New Apollo
Keene put it to Cohan that he is telling two stories: Black, and the firm he built. Cohan said the firm's story is the one being overlooked.
He first called on Apollo as a Lazard associate in the early 1990s, when calling on private equity firms was a thankless task, and used to share ideas with Rowan. He described Rowan as much smarter than he was.
What he did not know well was how Rowan used Athene to build out private credit
"And Mark Rowan at Apollo through private credit, which, you know, is an important subject on Wall Street now, has really recreated what Wall Street is all about."
He called the story of how Rowan did it with Jim Belardi a fascinating one
Cohan said the subtitle's reference to a new Wall Street is about this, not about Epstein
Competitors have copied the model or are trying to emulate it
On the insurance-funded model, Keene suggested Apollo was first at size; Cohan corrected the record — "Well, Berkshire Hathaway was the first" — and said Apollo led the new wave of funding transactions through owning insurance companies
He admitted that at the time it was happening he had no idea what the strategy was, and only understands it now
5. Apollo, Institutionalized
Keene asked where Apollo's new leadership wants to take the firm.
Cohan said the answer is that it has been institutionalized. It used to be scrappy and sharp-elbowed, he said, and everyone in the industry has their Apollo scars and stories.
Rowan's project has been to normalize the firm and make it less rough around the edges
Cohan credited him with creating a new, different and supportive culture, then immediately limited the claim: it is still a tough place to work
He said Apollo considers itself in the same league as Blackstone and KKR, and that it should
6. The Collection and the Stake
Keene turned to Black as a collector. Cohan, who describes himself as a big art appreciator, gave the strongest assessment in the segment.
"This is the finest collection in private hands I've ever seen."
Asked whether the works are in museums, Cohan said they are lent out but mostly held at home: "He does lend his stuff out to museums, but it's mostly in his townhouse not too far from here."
On Black's remaining stake in Apollo, Keene read that he is still the third-largest shareholder at 85 million shares; Cohan said he believes it is the single largest individual holding, and added that it is down from 93 million
The show also read Bloomberg's own wealth data on air: a net worth of $18.5 billion, ranking 153rd globally, at 75 years of age
7. A Milken-Style Comeback
Keene asked what Black thinks his legacy is, and whether he cares given the hit it has taken.
Cohan said Black must care, and that it is probably why he participated in the book at all. He said he wanted to give Black the space to explain himself, and has been criticized for giving him too much.
He thinks Black is hoping for a rehabilitation like Michael Milken's, and marked the difference himself
Milken pleaded guilty to crimes, went to prison and was later pardoned
"Leon has not been accused of, you know, convicted of anything."
Cohan framed his own interest as long-standing: he arrived on Wall Street in the mid-1980s when Drexel Burnham Lambert was at its peak
His broader point is about the Drexel alumni network rather than about Black alone — he said what was remarkable was how successful Drexel's leadership went on to be over the following 30 or 40 years
He named Black's brother-in-law Tony Ressler, who started Ares inside Apollo before it was spun off
8. His Father's Fall
Keene raised Eli Black, Leon's father, who died by suicide when he jumped from the Pan Am building while his firm was under duress.
Cohan's answer reframed the whole career: the death was not an interruption to Black's Wall Street life, it was the reason for it.
"Well, it was the catalyst for him having a career in finance."
Black had been a philosophy major at Dartmouth and, Cohan said, did not want to go into Wall Street at all
His father urged him toward business school; he was a strong enough student to get into Harvard Business School relatively easily, and did not like it
After his father's death, Black became the breadwinner — his mother was an artist and his sister a teacher
The family fortune was largely lost because it was tied to the stock of United Brands, which fell after the incident
Cohan said that is why the book opens with the story, and that Black then went to Wall Street and turned out to be very good at it
Bonus Insights
Black recently bought the Woolworth Mansion between Fifth and Madison, and Cohan expects him to turn it into his own version of the Neue Galerie: renovated, hung with his artwork and opened to the public, with a possible donation to the Metropolitan Museum of Art later for a tax write-off
He also runs his family office, Elysium, and owns the art publisher Phaidon
On the Munch painting, Cohan has seen it in Black's house and said only four of them exist. He put the price at "$120 million. That was, at that time, the most ever paid for an artwork."
The purchase traces back to Black's Dartmouth thesis on the wearing of masks in literature and art; he considered the painting the opening salvo of the modernist movement and so had to have it
Asked what is next, Cohan said his eighth book will be followed by one written for himself, on the David Halberstam model of alternating major subjects with personal ones
Keene compared the Drexel alumni network to Coach K's coaching tree at Duke; Cohan, a Duke man himself, said he had been waiting for it
Cohan's bottom line is that the Epstein relationship is the reason people are reading about Apollo, but the firm's real significance is that Mark Rowan used an insurance company to build the private-credit business the rest of Wall Street is now copying.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Apollo Global Management (The firm Black co-founded out of Drexel's collapse; Cohan says it has been institutionalized under Mark Rowan and now considers itself a peer of the largest alternative managers)
Athene (The annuity business Rowan created with Jim Belardi and used as the platform to build Apollo's private-credit franchise)
Berkshire Hathaway (Cohan's correction to Keene: it was first to fund transactions through owning insurance companies, before Apollo led the new wave)
Blackstone and KKR (The peers Apollo considers itself in the same league as, and Cohan agrees it should)
Ares Management (Started inside Apollo by Black's brother-in-law Tony Ressler, then spun off)
Dechert (The law firm Apollo's special committee engaged, at Black's own request, to investigate his relationship with Epstein)
Lazard (Where Cohan was an associate in the early 1990s, calling on private equity firms including Apollo)
Phaidon (The art publisher Black owns)
Neue Galerie and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The model for what Cohan expects Black to do with the Woolworth Mansion, and the possible eventual home for the collection)
Books & Resources Mentioned
Money to Burn – William D. Cohan (The book under discussion, and his eighth)
The Best and the Brightest – David Halberstam (Cohan's model for a career: alternate the big public subjects with books written for yourself)
The New York Times' reporting on Black's payments to Epstein (The first published estimate, which Cohan says put the total at $50 million to $75 million against an actual $158 million)
Cohan's own Vanity Fair piece on the Dechert findings (Written when the report came out, saying how incredulous he was at the explanation offered)
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