British-American billionaire Len Blavatnik gives $15 million to fund foreign policy internships

British-American billionaire Len Blavatnik, the founder of Access Industries and controlling owner of Warner Music Group Corp., is giving $15 million to the Council on Foreign Relations to expand the paid internship program that bears his name.

The gift from the Blavatnik Family Foundation, announced by the New York-based think tank on Monday, combines endowment funding with money for immediate use. It more than doubles the foundation's original $12 million gift, which created the Blavatnik Internship Program in January 2020.

The new money will pay for full-time internships for the program's summer cohort and help cover rising operating costs, according to CFR. The council said the expansion will give interns a longer and fuller experience, with more contact with its scholars and programs.

"We hope this expanded program will open doors for the next generation of leaders and equip them to tackle the defining challenges of our time," said Blavatnik, who is a life member of CFR.

The program has supported more than 1,000 young people since it began. It draws an average of 58,000 applications a year for about 140 internships, according to the council, making it one of the most selective entry points into the US foreign policy world.

CFR, founded in 1921, is one of the most influential foreign policy organizations in the United States. It publishes the journal Foreign Affairs and counts former secretaries of state, senior military officers and business leaders among its members.

Paid internships

Michael Froman, CFR's president and a former US trade representative, said the gift "expands access to paid internships, ensuring that talented students and recent graduates can pursue opportunities regardless of financial circumstances."

The program pays interns an hourly wage, and CFR says it was designed to open its internships to a broader range of qualified students from all backgrounds. Interns work directly with the council's experts and take part in skills workshops and career advice sessions.

"We are deeply grateful to Len Blavatnik and the Blavatnik Family Foundation for their extraordinary generosity, vision, and long-standing partnership with CFR," Froman said.

Blavatnik's fortune and giving

Blavatnik, 69, was born in Odesa, then part of the Soviet Union, and moved to the United States in 1978. He studied at Columbia University and Harvard Business School before founding Access Industries in 1986. He made his first fortune in Russian oil and aluminum in the 1990s and later moved into chemicals, media and entertainment.

Access bought Warner Music in 2011 for $3.3 billion and took the record label public on Nasdaq in 2020 while keeping control. It also owns sports streaming service DAZN.

Blavatnik is worth $29.9 billion and ranks No. 78 in the world, according to Forbes' 2026 World's Billionaires list. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index values him at $37.7 billion. He was ranked Britain's third-richest person on the 2026 Sunday Times Rich List, with a fortune of £26.85 billion ($35.5 billion).

Blavatnik, who holds US and UK citizenship, was knighted in 2017 for services to philanthropy. His foundation says it has given more than $1.3 billion to over 250 institutions, including the University of Oxford, where a £75 million gift funded the Blavatnik School of Government, and London's Tate Modern, which named its extension after him.

His family foundation has given at least $270 million to Harvard University, about $200 million of it to the medical school. In December 2023, Bloomberg reported that the foundation had paused donations to Harvard over the university's handling of antisemitism on campus, citing a person familiar with the matter.