JB Pritzker
Jay Robert "JB" Pritzker is an American politician, lawyer, and businessman serving since 2019 as the 43rd governor of Illinois.
Born in Palo Alto, California, Pritzker graduated from Milton Academy, Duke University, and Northwestern University School of Law. A member of the wealthy Pritzker family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, Pritzker has helped to create several venture capital and investment startups, including Pritzker Group Private Capital, where he serves as managing partner. He also co-founded Chicago Ventures and funded the startups Techstars Chicago and Built in Chicago. According to Forbes, as of August 2025, his estimated net worth is $3.9 billion.
Before entering electoral politics, Pritzker was a longtime active member and financial supporter of the Democratic Party. In 1998, he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois's 9th congressional district, losing in the Democratic primary. He chaired the Illinois Human Rights Commission from 2003 to 2006 under Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Pritzker won a crowded Democratic primary for governor of Illinois in the 2018 election. He defeated Republican incumbent Bruce Rauner in the general election on November 6 and took office on January 14, 2019. Pritzker was reelected in 2022, defeating Darren Bailey. During his governorship, Pritzker has focused on fiscal policy, education, healthcare, incentivizing clean energy, and criminal justice reform. He legalized recreational cannabis, expanded abortion access, and managed the COVID-19 pandemic in Illinois in his first term.
Early life, family, and education
Pritzker was born in Palo Alto, California, on January 19, 1965. He is the son of Donald Pritzker and Sue Pritzker. Pritzker is named after his paternal uncles, Jay Pritzker and Robert Pritzker, and is known by his initials. Pritzker's grandfather, Abe Pritzker, was a business lawyer. Pritzker is a member of the Pritzker family, a Jewish family of Ukrainian descent that was prominent in business and philanthropy during the late 20th century. The Pritzkers have consistently ranked near the top of the Forbes "America's Richest Families" list since its inception in 1982.Pritzker's father, Donald Pritzker, was the president of Hyatt Hotels; he died of a heart attack at age 39 in 1972. After his father died and his mother became ill, Pritzker moved in with his aunt, Cindy Pritzker, at age 12. Pritzker's mother, Sue Pritzker, died in an accident at age 49 in 1982. Pritzker's older siblings are Anthony Pritzker and former United States secretary of commerce Penny Pritzker.
Pritzker has said that certain overseas trusts for which he was the designated beneficiary were set up by his grandfather and are used only for charitable contributions, yielding no personal benefit to him.
Pritzker was raised in Atherton, California. He attended Milton Academy, a boarding school in Milton, Massachusetts, and graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. In 1993, he earned his Juris Doctor from Northwestern University School of Law. He is an attorney and a member of the Illinois State Bar Association and the Chicago Bar Association.
Business career
Pritzker co-founded Pritzker Group Private Capital, where he serves as managing partner. In 2008, he received the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce's Entrepreneurial Champion Award for his efforts to promote economic development and job creation.Pritzker served as chairman of ChicagoNEXT, then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Council on Innovation and Technology, and founded 1871, a nonprofit digital startup incubator. He was involved in the creation of the Illinois Venture Capital Association and the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center. He also co-founded Chicago Ventures and funded the startups Techstars Chicago and Built in Chicago.
Early political involvement
Before entering electoral politics, Pritzker was a longtime financial supporter and active member of the Democratic Party.Work as D.C. staffer
In the 1980s, Pritzker served on the legislative staffs of U.S. representative Tom Lantos, U.S. senator Terry Sanford, and U.S. senator Alan J. Dixon, making trade and transportation issues a top priority. After his career in Washington, D.C., Pritzker founded Democratic Leadership for the 21st Century, a national organization dedicated to attracting voters under 40 to the Democratic Party.1998 congressional campaign
Anticipating that Sidney R. Yates, the longtime Democratic incumbent in Illinois's 9th Congressional District, might retire instead of seeking reelection, Pritzker laid the groundwork for possible 1994 and 1996 campaigns for his seat. Each time, there was public speculation about whether Yates would retire, but he ultimately ran for reelection. Each time, after Yates announced his intention to run, Pritzker abandoned his plans to run. In both these elections, state representative Jan Schakowsky also explored a potential run if Yates were to retire and also opted not to run once Yates announced his intention to seek reelection. Pritzker established a campaign committee in 1993. By the end of the 1996 cycle, the committee had raised more than $120,000, and spent most of this money on operating expenditures.In 1998, Yates opted to forgo reelection, and Pritzker ran in the Democratic primary to succeed him, reconstituting his campaign committee in April 1997. Also running in the primary were Schakowsky and state senator Howard W. Carroll. The district represented the northern lakefront of Chicago, as well as the suburbs of Evanston and Skokie. It had a large Jewish electorate and had long been regarded as the "Jewish seat" in Illinois's congressional delegation. Yates was Jewish, as were all three Democratic contenders to succeed him. Originally also running was a fourth candidate: Charles A. "Pat" Boyle, an attorney. However, Boyle's candidacy was largely overlooked.
The district had been described as being among the most liberal in the country. Journalist James Ylisela Jr. observed that Pritzker, Schakowsky, and Carroll largely all ran on platforms aligned with the "liberal Democratic Party agenda" that Yates had championed. But the Chicago Tribune wrote that Pritzker and Carroll ran on more moderate platforms than Schakowsky, and therefore potentially wound up competing with each other for many of the same voters.
At the time, the election was one of the most expensive congressional primaries in U.S. history, and Pritzker spent nearly $1 million of his own money on his campaign. He finished third among five candidates in the Democratic primary, with 20.5% of the vote to Schakowsky's 45.1% and Carroll's 34.4%.
State and national politics
Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed Pritzker to chair the Illinois Human Rights Commission. He held that position from 2003 to 2006. After he left the chairmanship, Blagojevich appointed former White House counsel and federal judge Abner J. Mikva to succeed him.In the 2008 presidential election, Pritzker served as national co-chair of Hillary Clinton's campaign. He was a delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention and the 2016 Democratic National Convention. He supported Barack Obama in the 2008 general election and helped merge the Clinton and Obama campaigns in Illinois.
In May 2017, the Chicago Tribune published an 11-minute FBI wiretap of Pritzker and Blagojevich in 2008 discussing campaign contributions and options for Pritzker to be appointed to statewide office. At the time, Pritzker was described as a "businessman with political ambitions". On the tapes, Blagojevich asked Pritzker if he would like to be appointed state treasurer, to which Pritzker, who has a background in finance, responded, "Yeah, that's the one I would want." Pritzker's general election opponent Governor Bruce Rauner and Pritzker's Democratic primary opponents took issue with his conduct. Pritzker responded to the allegations: "I've not been accused of any wrongdoing. I have not done anything wrong." Law enforcement made no allegations of wrongdoing against Pritzker, and he has said: "over decades of my life, I have been doing public service, and the opportunity to continue to do public service as treasurer of the state was something that had been brought up, and so there was a conversation about that." Pritzker later apologized for a number of controversial and incendiary comments he made in that conversation. He and Blagojevich discussed filling Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat, with Pritzker saying that appointing then-Secretary of State Jesse White would "cover you on the African-American thing" and that he was the "least offensive" Black candidate. After the tape was released, White continued to support Pritzker in his 2018 gubernatorial campaign and accepted his apology, saying he knew "where his heart is" and "I consider him a very good friend".
Gubernatorial campaigns
Elections
2018
On April 6, 2017, Pritzker announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor of Illinois. He was endorsed by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, Illinois Congressman Luis Gutiérrez, former Illinois Congressman Glenn Poshard, more than a dozen members of the Illinois General Assembly, 21 local labor unions, and the Illinois AFL–CIO.On August 10, 2017, Pritzker announced that his running mate would be freshman state representative and fellow Chicago resident Juliana Stratton. By December 2017, Pritzker had spent $42million of his own money on his campaign without receiving funding from any other source. On March 20, 2018, he won the Democratic primary by a large margin, receiving 45.13% of the vote and defeating five opponents. On November 6, 2018, Pritzker defeated incumbent Republican governor Bruce Rauner in the general election, receiving 54.53% of the vote to Rauner's 38.83%. Pritzker was well ahead of Rauner in most polls from the summer of 2018 onward, and won by the largest margin in a gubernatorial race since 1994.
Pritzker spent $171.5 million of his own money on his campaign, primarily on digital outreach, television advertising, and staff.
Pritzker was inaugurated as Illinois's 43rd governor on January 14, 2019. With an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion in January 2019, he became the richest politician in the U.S. His second term in office began on January 9, 2023.