Talk:Len Blavatnik

Additional Updates to the Philanthropy section

Thank you Chetsford for your prompt edits. Below are a few more suggested additions to the Philanthropy section. Perhaps you would not mind adding these as well.

• In the Philanthropy section, after the sentence that begins "In 2016, Blavatnik funded a new hall…" please add the following:

In February 2023, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group made a £10 million ($12 million) donation to the V&A to create a center dedicated to David Bowie.

• In the Philanthropy section, below the paragraph that begins "In December 2021…" please add the following:

In 2022, Blavatnik gifted £10 million to the National Portrait Gallery for refurbishment work. The London gallery reopened in 2023 with more than 100 years of British portraits in nine galleries, as part of the Inspiring People Project in the new Blavatnik Wing.

• Directly after the paragraph that begins "In February 2022…" please add the following:

The Blavatnik Family Foundation provided donations to local organizations in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in 2022, and it provided humanitarian supplies in Israel following the October 7 2023 Hamas terror attack.

• Directly after the paragraph that begins "In December 2023…" please add the following:

The Blavatnik Family Foundation announced in March 2024 that it would be awarding Brandeis University a $6 million grant to support two graduate research fellowships in life sciences, provided funding for 11 Harvard affiliates to visit Israel on a solidarity trip after incidences of antisemitism were reported on the Harvard University campus, following the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, and in April 2024, the Blavatnik Archive led the launch of the Refuseniks & Activists site, a digital platform detailing the history the Free Soviet Jewry Movement.

• Please remove the following unsourced and un-encyclopedic statement at the end of the Philanthropy section: There is currently a scam circulating on the Internet that Blavatnik is giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars to private citizens.

References

Thank you so much for your help. C at Access (talk) 13:42, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the "scam" sentence. But I don't see the point of adding all those extra items. The section is turning into a big list. A foundation exists to make donations; I'm not convinced that we need to list every item that gets into the news. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:26, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Unless there is more than passing coverage of Len Blavatnik, I argue that most of these sources are just padding to the philanthropy section. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:23, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Nomoskedasticity and Bluethricecreamman. I understand that the Philanthropy section seems to be growing large. However, this section should be kept current to keep the article as a whole maximally useful. Perhaps we can make a compromise and just add the donations from 2024? If you agree, then please add the fourth bullet point from the above request. Thanks so much, C at Access (talk) 14:57, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Done. whole section still requires significant trimming, but this bullet point seems to be covered by several sources, so could possibly be WP:DUE to include. actually change my mind. A press release from Brandeis celebrating the guy who gave money, and the press release from refuseniks all seem not WP:INDEPENDENT. I'd also argue all this sourcing seems WP:ROUTINE. This information by itself just makes more of a giant list of philanthropy that Blavatnik does, which is turning that section into a database of his latest philanthropic endeavors. see WP:NOTDB

That sounds right to me. If it's important to keep that section "current", we could go for "one in, one out". Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:46, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

MOS:LABEL issue in lead

Returning to an unresolved topic that has been discussed here in the past: In the second paragraph of the lead, the word "other" from the phrase "alongside other Russian oligarchs" should be removed, per MOS:LABEL. The word "other" strongly implies that Blavatnik is himself a Russian oligarch, just like the "other Russian oligarchs" he made his initial fortune with. Since whether or not he is a Russian oligarch is disputed in the sources, in order to avoid contentious labels - especially in the lead of a BLP - the sentence should instead read "alongside Russian oligarchs." C at Access (talk) 18:16, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

The list of words in MOS:LABEL does not include oligarch. Even assuming the label is contentious, many publications all compare Blavatnik to other oligarchs even if they do not explicitly say if Blavatnik is or isnt one. WP:PUBLICFIGURE indicates the abundance of sourcing would suggest that this is WP:DUE for the lede. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:53, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi Bluethricecreamman. Thanks for your quick response. There is no question that the term "oligarch" is contentious. (The MOS:LABEL list of contentious labels is clearly not meant to be exhaustive.) In addition, regardless of comparisons and subtext that might be found in numerous sources, if reliable sources do not widely call Blavatnik an oligarch, then Wikipedia should not call him that either, especially in the lead. Thank you once again for your consideration. C at Access (talk) 15:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think most folks would agree. If you want, feel free to solicit opinions from other noticeboards again. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:02, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I have posted at WP:3O to help resolve this issue. C at Access (talk) 15:11, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

@Bluethricecreamman and C at Access: Thank you for requesting a third opinion. As a reminder, the third opinion process is neither mandatory nor binding. This is a voluntary, nonbinding, informal process, enabling two editors involved in a current dispute to seek advice from an uninvolved third party. I hope I can be helpful. As I read the policies, I am not sure that oligarch is the same as other labels described as contentious, as it has a widely agreed upon definition and describes structural elements of a person's relationship to governance. I think it's more like calling someone an aristocrat than it is like calling someone a demogogue or kleptocrat. It's a clearly enough defined term that I don't think it's a clear matter of WP:SYNTH to use this term without it showing up in sources, any more than it would be to call someone a civic leader, especially in the case of Russian oligarchs who are defined my specific actions during specific time periods and geographic regions. All that said, while I personally think Blavatnik specifically is a clear example of an oligarch, User:C at Access is correct that some sources disagree. During a quick bit of research, my impression is that published experts have generally described him as an oligarch, but that some journalists have published the fact that he objects to that label via a strong PR campaign, and some non-experts have disagreed. I think that it is appropriate to describe blavatnik as a Russian oligarch as long as strong sources are referenced, and doing so in the lead is reflected with further explanation in the body of the article, which may also include a description of objections to the label. That the label is controversial doesn't make it unverifiable, and since I can't find evidence that this label is controversial among sources that should be regarded as reliable in this context, I support inclusion. I've included some example sources below I was able to find; I was not able to find any reliable sources that argue that he does not meet the definition, only references to his own PR firm's disagreement with the definition. Helpful references *Michel, Casey (2022-04-01). "How Russia's Oligarchs Laundered Their Reputations". Intelligencer. Retrieved 2024-12-07. Leonard, D. (2011). Who You Calling An Oligarch? Bloomberg Businessweek, 4255, 84–87. https://wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/login?auth=production&url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=67346610&site=eds-live&scope=site "An Oligarch's Guide to Influencing the West". Columbia Political Review. 2024-03-05. Retrieved 2024-12-07. Ruddick, Graham (2017-09-03). "Should Oxford and the V&A take millions from Ukrainian-born billionaire Len Blavatnik?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-12-07. Chapman, Majlie de Puy Kamp,Isabelle (2022-05-11). "'It's shameful': Russian-linked billionaires have given enormous sums to the West's leading educational and cultural institutions". CNN. Retrieved 2024-12-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Harrison-Broninski, Bertie (October 2019). "An Oligarch, A Think Tank And The Rise Of American Kleptocracy?". Journal of Political Risk. 7 (10). — penultimate_supper 🚀 (talk • contribs) 18:57, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi penultimate supper. I appreciate you offering your opinion, and while, of course, you have no obligation to remain involved in this discussion, I hope you'll read my response and consider it.

It seems difficult to claim that "oligarch" is not value-laden. There appears to be consensus on Wikipedia that it is - see Talk:Jeff Bezos#Jeff Bezos’ is an Oligarch. and other examples. And see this Washington Post article ("What is an oligarch, really?", which dedicates over 1,200 words to the trickiness of defining the term. Most, in fact, define the word in a way that clearly excludes Blavatnik, like the UK government, which defines "Russian oligarch" as "a Russian national" who is "connected to the Putin regime" (Blavatnik is neither). The WaPo article also cites a US federal judge who instructed lawyers in the Paul Manafort trial to stop using the word "oligarch" because the term was too "pejorative." In light of this, Blavatnik should only be called an oligarch in his Wikipedia biography if the term is used widely to describe him in reliable sources - and it is not.

Among the sources you cited that ostensibly describe Blavatnik as an oligarch, only the Guardian source can really be used to support this claim. The other sources either don't actually call Blavatnik an oligarch (Bloomberg, CNN, Journal of Political Risk) or are not necessarily reliable for contentious statements (New York magazine - per WP:RSP; CPR - as an undergraduate multipartisan political magazine).

As you wrote, some sources do quote individual experts who have called Blavatnik an oligarch; on the other hand, Anti-Corruption Foundation founder and opposition leader Alexei Navalny asserted that Blavatnik is not an oligarch and did not include him in his "Navalny 35" list or in the ACF's comprehensive list of more than 6,000 oligarchs, officials and propagandists. Per Navalny: "He isn't buying newspapers here, he isn't intimidating journalists, he basically isn't involved with Putin at all."

Finally, the lack of strong journalistic sources that actively argue that Blavatnik is not an oligarch only demonstrates the logical difficulty in proving a negative. There are countless reliable sources that talk about Blavatnik in the context of oligarchs (such as the New York Times article here) which refrain from using the term for Blavatnik himself, in what can only reasonably be explained as a conscious editorial decision that the term would be inappropriately applied to Blavatnik.

Thanks again for jumping in here - I hope I've been clear enough in my explanations. C at Access (talk) 17:15, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

You've been very clear in your explanations, and the way you handle COI/paid editing with transparency and respect for volunteer editors is laudable. I wasn't going to add more to this after my WP:Third Opinion, but the question has been lingering in my head, and your reply was civil and considerate, so I feel that the principle of respect demanded a thoughtful response.

I agree that the title oligarch is to some extent value-laden, clearly it's not a title most people receiving, but I don't think that automatically makes it analogous to the MOS:LABEL examples. There appears to be a clear, widely agreed upon structural definition used by subject matter experts, particularly regarding Russia and the former soviet states. There is room for reasonable disagreement about who it applies to, and I'd be more reticent outside of geopolitical areas where it has an established history—although I predict the coming years will provide more clarity even there, as more literature explores the role of corporate oligarchs in western liberal democracies. The needs of a court to protect the jury from the emotionally destabilizing impact which even true statements may exert divergent greatly from the needs of an encyclopedia. While a court may not have the time or resources to explore the tangent of whether Mr. Manafort was an oligarch without undermining the core goals of a trial, Wikipedia does not have the same sort of limitations (WP:NOTPAPER), nor does the inclusion of this term require the article to include a lengthy tangent, due to the presence of strong sources that can support it with minimal qualification.

Ultimately, my opinion is that it is appropriate to title Mr. Blavatnik as an oligarch in wikivoice, and certainly necessary that the article at least do so in the voice of sources, since it's hard to find any sources about him that don't at least discuss the term. That said, if there is substantial coverage of the term in this article, I'd support including both his own objection to the term, and any substantial coverage that objects. I think Navalny is a significant enough source that it could be mentioned, but while he's certainly an expert on the subject in a general sense, he's not neccesarily a WP:RELIABLE SOURCE, so his view would need to be carefully weighted against academic or journalistic voices that see the matter differently.

Be well. — penultimate_supper 🚀 ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:40, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

There have been two responses here declining to adopt what the COI editor is requesting. I'll add my own endorsement of these replies; I am satisfied that it is appropriate to use the term. Sure, Blavatnik objects (and then pays someone here to further that objection) -- well, we can note the objection. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

RfC: NPOV in the lead

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Proposer has withdrawn the RfC. Plus: WP:SNOW outcome favoring retention of the current language. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:48, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

---

Should the lead call Len Blavatnik a Russian oligarch by saying that he made his initial fortune "alongside other Russian oligarchs" or should the lead just say he made his initial fortune "alongside Russian oligarchs" to avoid using a disputed label in Wikipedia's voice?

• Option 1: Change the language.
• Option 2: Keep the language.

19:02, 16 December 2024 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by C at Access (talk • contribs)

Survey

• Option 1. Blavatnik should not be called a Russian oligarch in wikivoice, as whether the label applies to Blavatnik is disputed among experts and RS, and the label itself is contentious and not widely used to describe him (see MOS:LABEL). While many RS bring up Blavatnik's past association with Russian oligarchs, only a few sources and experts call him one outright; most refrain and even seem to go out of their way to avoid doing so (e.g., NY Times, WSJ, WaPo). Blavatnik's name also does not appear on any of the prominent lists of Russian oligarchs, such as the US Treasury Department's "Putin list," Alexei Navalny's "Navalny 35" list or the Anti-Corruption Foundation's comprehensive list of more than 6,000 oligarchs, officials and propagandists. Navalny asserted that Blavatnik is not an oligarch, saying, "He isn't buying newspapers here, he isn't intimidating journalists, he basically isn't involved with Putin at all."

The contentiousness of the label, which was notably called a "pejorative" by the US federal judge in the Manafort trial, is evidenced by the many sources reflecting on the amorphous, disputed definition of "Russian oligarch" and who falls under its umbrella (e.g., Washington Post, Forbes, Poynter). It should also be noted that the body of this article discusses the issue directly, at the end of the Career section. C at Access (talk) 19:02, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

• Note re COI editor -- C at Access (talk · contribs) has been open in discussions above about having a COI with respect to Blavatnik, but the point needs highlighting in connection with that editor's action here, starting an RfC about this topic. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 10:17, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 I'm not certain why this would be more pejorative referring to Blavatnik than to others. He did the same thing as the other Oligarchs to build his wealth. I also think it's a dangerous precedent to allow American courts to decide what constitutes a pejorative and what doesn't - especially surrounding language that denotes economic class. Sorry but it's not pejorative to say he's a rich guy who built a personal well of wealth and power by grabbing up Soviet assets when they were privatized. Simonm223 (talk) 20:46, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 - I'm not comfortable calling Blavatnik an oligarch straight up, but I am comfortable lumping him in the group of oligarchs in the current wording. See also discussion above, but there are dozens of sources within the article that talk about his initial fortune being from oligarch-like activities, and the explicit work he attempted to hide that label. would be WP:UNDUE to not include some mention of this controversy in the lede Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:49, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 (Summoned by bot) - For the same reasoning as Simonm223. Where we have plenty of sources stating that the subject did oligarch things in order to build their wealth then WP:WEIGHT suggests that we describe them as such. MOS:LEAD would suggest that such description be in the lead as if they didn't do oligarch things in the first place we wouldn't know about them and they wouldn't have an article. TarnishedPath^talk 00:56, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  The term "Russian oligarch" is not defined as someone who did oligarch things. It is defined most commonly as a Russian person who not only is wealthy but also has significant political influence in Russia. As the UK government's definition reads: "A Russian oligarch is a Russian national who is both ultra-high-net-worth and connected to the Putin regime." Blavatnik does not fit that definition. There is certainly another overbroad definition whereby a Russian oligarch is "pretty much any Russian who became extraordinarily rich during the country's privatization era of the 1990s." But when such a glaring ambiguity in the definition exists - along with the disparity in the sources that has already been outlined - in order to maintain WP:NPOV the reference to Blavatnik as a Russian oligarch should not be in wikivoice. C at Access (talk) 17:21, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  Frankly I'm rather concerned if states are muddying the definition of "Oligarch," which quite clearly referred to those people who made their fortunes during forced-privatization, by trying to correlate it with alignment to Putin. Seems like apologia. Simonm223 (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  Our own article on Russian oligarchs states "Russian oligarchs (Russian: олигархи, romanized: oligarkhi) are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union" in the first sentence.

  Britannica says about them in the first sentence on the subject "Russian oligarchs, tycoons who reaped enormous fortunes in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991".

  CBS News about oligarchs says "Oligarchs — or extremely wealthy business leaders who are politically connected — became more prominent in Russia in the 1990s, but they are not unique to Russia.

  Many Russian oligarchs are heavily involved in and benefit from Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime, with some serving in political positions". Notably it doesn't say that all of them are heavily involved in Putin's regime, only that many of them are.

  Merriam Webster states that oligarch are "in Russia and other countries that succeeded the Soviet Union : one of a class of individuals who through private acquisition of state assets amassed great wealth that is stored especially in foreign accounts and properties and who typically maintain close links to the highest government circles". Notably Putin isn't mentioned and it only states that they typically maintain close links to the highest government circles, not that they always do.

  Cambridge dictionary states about oligarchs "someone who is extremely rich and powerful, especially a person from Russia who became rich after the end of the former Soviet Union"

  So yes, doing oligarch things (i.e., extremely wealthy businessmen who made their wealth out of the privatisation of formerly owned USSR state owned assets) makes them an oligarch. TarnishedPath^talk 11:44, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 He doesn't think so... See the Guardian

Footnote added 21 July 2024: After publication of this article, we were contacted by a representative for Sir Len Blavatnik restating his view that “oligarch” is an incorrect description of him. The representative said Blavatnik, who is a UK/US citizen born in Ukraine during the Soviet era, has “divested of all his major Russian assets years ago”. Blavatnik has also stated previously that his “personal and commercial activities are not, and have never been, involved with Putin, Russian politics or the Russian government”.

But it seems obvious to me

• Option 2. Whether Blavatnik is an "oligarch" in the strict technical sense of being part of an "oligarchy" is not really relevant to the reference to him making his fortune as part of a group of more loosely defined "Russian oligarchs", which has a somewhat broader definition which he most definitely fit at the time. The current wording also makes no claim that he is an oligarch, simply that he got rich that way at some point in the past. It is kind of WP:WEASEL worded but it feels like a reasonable compromise.Void if removed (talk) 10:30, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. I previously responded to a WP:3O request on this topic with a more detailed response, but to reiterate, I don't see a problem with describing Len Blavatnik as an oligarch based on the sources available and the relevant policies. The only significant controversy around this description is that he does not like being called an oligarch, and has spent money to influence the press and this encyclopedia to avoid calling him one. That is not a good enough reason to avoid using the label if reliable sources suggest it fits, and the current language steers shy of even directly labeling him one, which I think is even more inarguably acceptable. I did praise the CoI editor for their conduct in my WP:30 response, and do find that they have been transparent, but I think if this RfC ends up supporting the current language, we need to be able to expect that the CoI editor will respect the repeated, clear, consensus on this issue and not keep seeking new ways to bring about their desired result. Hopefully that is already their intention if this RfC doesn't go the way they hope. — penultimate_supper 🚀 ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:55, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. There are a few sources in the article calling him as an oligarch so I see no problem with this wording. Alaexis_¿question? 21:37, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. No where in this article do we call him a Russian oligarch, we only associate him with other Russian oligarchs. The lead should summarize what the article says, so no we should not change the lead. Dobblesteintalk 22:50, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Philanthropy and Political donations

Hi all. I have a few suggestions for edits to the "Philanthropy" and "Political donations" sections, as follows:

• The final paragraph of the Philanthropy section should be removed, as it does not correctly reflect the content of the cited source, whose conclusion about the intent of the Foundation is speculative in any case. The source states (accurately) that the Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund declined to renew a previous grant to the Highlander Research and Education Center that had just expired. Then the Jewish Currents author speculates a connection between the decision not to renew the grant and the fact that the center had signed a letter supporting a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas War. But there is no indication in the source that this was anything more than the author's speculation, and therefore should be removed.
• In the second paragraph of the Political donations section, the words "who is closely associated with Russian oligarchs such as Viktor Vekselberg and Oleg Deripaska" read as a non-sequitur and should be removed. Blavatnik's past relationship with Vekselberg is covered exhaustively in the Career section (Vekselberg is mentioned five times!) and including this line in the context of Blavatnik's political donations only serves to winkingly imply that the donations were connected to – and tainted by - his past associations, which is not supported by the sources.
• The first sentence of the fourth paragraph, about Blavatnik being "mentioned" in 2017 in the Mueller investigation, is misleading and should be removed. The sources report that investigators asked witnesses unspecified questions about Blavatnik. There was never an accusation that Blavatnik was involved in any wrongdoing, and Blavatnik was not mentioned anywhere in the Mueller report itself. The fact that other people were reportedly questioned about Blavatnik is not a noteworthy detail in a biography of Blavatnik.
• In the second sentence of the fourth paragraph, please change the inaccurate "he also made a donation to Trump's legal fund" to "some of which was later directed into Trump's legal fund," which is accurate according to the cited ABC News source.

Thanks, C at Access (talk) 16:13, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Replying to your first point before I move on to the others. That's not speculation. It's three anonymous sources. So, no, that's not an appropriate edit you are requesting. Simonm223 (talk) 16:17, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Regarding your second point it is thoroughly supported by the three WP:RS that it is tied to. apparently the Dallas Morning News remains concerned with Mr. Blavatnik's ties to Putin associates. Simonm223 (talk) 16:20, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Regarding your third point - it acutally failed verification as the reference to Blavatnik in the article does not make it clear he was mentioned in the Muller report. In fact mention of him was very much in passing. I will remove it. Simonm223 (talk) 16:22, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Regarding your fourth point, actually the fifth paragraph by my count, I changed the wording to "These donations included $12,000 directed Trump's legal fund," as the source indicated that the donation to the legal fund was from those prior donations rather than in addition to them. Simonm223 (talk) 16:27, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi Simonm223. Thanks for your quick and thorough reply. I have a few comments in response:

*Point 1: The three anonymous sources in the Jewish Currents article were not referring to Highlander specifically, but only to vague "multiple instances" in which WMG/BFF SJF was supposedly "penalizing expressions of Palestinian solidarity." Neither those anonymous sources nor the JC article states why Highlander's previous grant was not renewed, and Wikipedia should not be implying without sources that it was because of the ceasefire letter.

*Point 2: The three RS mention Vekselberg and Deripaska in order to give context for readers who don't already know about their connection to Blavatnik. But in this Wikipedia article, there is already abundant context, as Blavatnik's former business associations are discussed at great length in other sections. In the context of the Political donations section, mentioning the "Russian oligarchs" serves only to create suspicion about the motivation for the donations. The Dallas Morning News sources do not state that Blavatnik's donations were in any way connected to oligarchs or to Blavatnik's former relationships with them.

*Point 4: It is important to make clear that, as the ABC source states, Blavatnik is not the one who did the "directing" of the funds after he had donated to the inauguration fund. Changing to "...which was later directed to Trump's legal fund" reflects the cited source properly and removes the ambiguity.

Thanks for your consideration and help. C at Access (talk) 22:08, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

1) If you want to argue the points, talk to Jewish Currents and ask them to do edit corrections. By all accounts, its only bad if Wikipedia makes the line between the dots (see WP:OR). If a secondary source does the analysis we can include their analysis.

2) sources 99, 100, and 101 all explicitly include Blavatnik's previous connections to Russian oligarchs as a reason for concern with regards to his political donation, and the context of his alleged connection matters as they are highlighted in the articles about that. We won't remove that.

4) the article does not state that Blavatnik directed the money to legal fund, but it also says he did not. Current wording reflects that. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 22:14, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

The ABC source says "was directed" not by who. Wikipedia says "was directed" not by who. We follow the sources. I am not going to insert synth to cover for Blavatnik just because he thinks news media isn't being fair. Simonm223 (talk) 09:28, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi Bluethricecreamman and Simonm223. The words "was later directed," which I proposed adding, are literally the language used in the cited ABC News source - that is the opposite of WP:SYNTH. Wikipedia currently says "These donations included $12,000 directed to Trump's legal fund," which implies incorrectly that Blavatnik did the directing, in stark contrast to the cited source's language ("Those figures include more than $12,000 that was later directed into President Trump's legal defense fund"), which implies correctly that the RNC did the directing. Thank you. C at Access (talk) 19:04, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't see your request as being an improvement here. It's unnecessarily wordy and says the same thing. I will not be making the requested change. Other editors can speak for themselves. Simonm223 (talk) 19:05, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

agree with simonm223. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:28, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Board memberships

Please correct a few inaccuracies and omissions in the "Board membership" subsection of the Career section. First, Blavatnik is not on any board at Cambridge University or at Harvard Business School, so please remove those. (They are not currently sourced in the article.) Second, Blavatnik is a board member at a few organizations that are not currently mentioned, so the paragraph should be updated as follows:

Blavatnik is a member of the Board of Trustees at Carnegie Hall, a member of the Board of Directors at 92NY and a member of the Board of Directors at the Center for Jewish History. He is also a member of the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Board of Governors at Tel Aviv University.

References

Thank you C at Access (talk) 16:31, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

 Done Likeanechointheforest (talk) 19:28, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, Likeanechointheforest! C at Access (talk) 17:04, 17 February 2025 (UTC)