Married with two children, Mr. Carl Icahn is a septuagenarian Jewish-American billionaire financier/corporate raider/private equity investor. A graduate from Princeton University, he later dropped out of New York University School of Medicine. Mr. Icahn now lives in New York. Like many others in the 1980s, he also started making his fortune using financier Michael Milken’s junk bonds. Once the junk bond and overall market bust in the early 1990s, Mr. Icahn kept a low profile in the business world, and became less public in his dealings.

His business interests are varied. Mr. Icahn is a director of Blockbuster Inc, and the chairman of Imclone, American Real Estate Partners LP, XO Communications Inc, WestPoint Home Inc. and American Railcar. He is also a beneficial owner of Adventrx Pharmaceuticals Inc, Hollywood Entertainment, National Energy Group Inc, Vector Group Ltd. Mr. Icahn has significant holdings in Time Warner Inc. The billionaire businessman has casino interests in Las Vegas, Nevada, including the Stratosphere, Arizona Charlie's Boulder and Arizona Charlie's Decatur, which are operated through American Entertainment Properties, a subsidiary of Icahn's major company American Real Estate Partners. He has also made attempts to take over Marvel Comics

Many believe that it was due to Mr. Icahn’s pressure, who had bought a large chunk of Mylan Laboratories’ shares that the company decided against taking over another pharmaceutical company, King Phamaceuticals, of Bristol, Tennessee. In 2006 he sold his stake in KT&G (Korea Tobacco & Ginseng) for a significant quick one-year profit.
He is presently a major shareholder of Time Warner owning about 3.3% of the company valued at billions of dollars. Mr. Icahn has been busy trying to influence the direction of Time Warner, which has often led to conflict with its chief executive, Mr. Richard Parsons. The two later agreed to a settlement under which Time Warner will buy back $20 billion in stock, cut costs by an additional $500 million in 2007, and install two independent directors to the board.

Mr. Icahn now holds shares in Take Two Interactive, a video game publisher and Telik, Inc. (Nasdaq: TELK), a biotech company engaged in cancer research, because he believed its shares were undervalued. He is also reported to be the beneficial owner of 14.57%, or 6.1 million shares, of WCI Communities Inc. Recently, Motorola said it received notice that Mr. Icahn owns about 33.5 million shares, representing a 1.39% interest in the company and pressed for a seat on its board. The billionaire businessman has also spent a considerable amount of money on various philanthropic activities.