Jesse Eisinger

Senior Editor and Reporter

Photo of Jesse Eisinger

Jesse Eisinger is a senior editor and reporter at ProPublica. He is the author of the “The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives.”

In April 2011, he and a colleague won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for a series of stories on questionable Wall Street practices that helped make the financial crisis the worst since the Great Depression. He was the lead reporter on the “Secret IRS Files” series that exposed the tax avoidance strategies of the ultrawealthy. The series won several prizes, including the Selden Ring in 2022. He also won the 2015 Gerald Loeb Award for commentary.

He was the editor on the “Friends of the Court” series, which revealed how a small group of politically influential billionaires wooed justices with lavish gifts and travel; it won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2024.

He serves on the advisory board of the University of California, Berkeley’s Financial Fraud Institute. And he was a consultant on season 3 of the HBO series “Succession.”

His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, NewYorker.com, The Washington Post, The Baffler and The American Prospect and on NPR and “This American Life.” Before joining ProPublica, he was the Wall Street editor of Conde Nast Portfolio and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, covering markets and finance.

He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, the journalist Sarah Ellison, and their daughters.

Magnetar Gets Started

E-mails Give Glimpse of How Magnetar Worked

E-mails with business partners suggest Magnetar's clout: The firm was involved at the start of deals and pushed for riskier bonds to be included in CDOs. One deal fell apart partly because of Ischus Capital Management's unease with pressure from Magnetar.

A Lawsuit Suggests Merrill Lynch's Role

The Magnetar Trade: How One Hedge Fund Helped Keep the Bubble Going

The hedge fund Magnetar helped create mortgage-based securities, pushed for risky things to go inside them and then bet against the investments, resulting in billions in losses for investors and ultimately making the financial crisis worse. It’s a story of the perverse incentives and reckless behavior that characterized the last days of the boom.

JPMorgan Gets Into the Game -- And Loses

Concerns About 'Reputational Risks'

The Magnetar Trade: How One Hedge Fund Helped Keep the Bubble Going

The hedge fund helped create mortgage-based securities, pushed for risky things to go inside them and then bet against the investments, resulting in billions in losses for investors and ultimately making the financial crisis worse. It’s a story of the perverse incentives and reckless behavior that characterized the last days of the boom.

Graphic: The Timeline of Magnetar's Deals

How did Magnetar's deals in subprime mortgage securities compare to the overall market's?

SEC Just Now Seeking Key Information On Meltdown

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