Michael Sacks Wants Back In. Chicago Should Ask What He Brings to the Table
Nothing is more important than retiring Brandon Johnson and thwarting Hilario Dominguez from becoming school board president. However, Michael Sacks handpicking their replacements is not the answer
Michael Sacks is an unelected money manager whose family and those associated with his firm, Grosvenor Capital Management (GCM Grosvenor), provided massive political support, while his firm became home to an extraordinary collection of former senior government officials to buy influence. His influence has waned since the end of the Emanuel mayoralty, and he’s attempting to buy back in with his heavy involvement in the Alexi Giannoulias campaign for mayor and Jessica Biggs’ campaign for president of the Chicago Board of Education.
Sacks’ preferred pick for City Hall is Alexi Giannoulias, whom he likely sees as his vehicle for restoring Emanuel-era influence. Giannoulias, like all candidates for mayor, owes voters clear and unambiguous answers on Chicago’s future and a full accounting of his background. He appears to be waiting until after his campaign to return as Secretary of State to provide those answers. Chicago voters deserve those answers from every candidate for mayor. When a candidate amasses more than $20 million months before formally entering the race, the scrutiny should intensify.
Sacks presents himself as spearheading the opposition to the incompetent Brandon Johnson and woefully unqualified Hilario Dominguez while supporting candidates who may not be ideologues but are equally unqualified and beholden to him. There’s more than one candidate for mayor who could both defeat Johnson and govern with independence, not just from the CTU, but also from financial influencers like Sacks. Likewise, Victor Henderson, an accomplished civil rights lawyer and successful businessman, is a far superior independent candidate for school board president.
This appears to be of little importance to Sacks, whose objective is influence. Consider another beneficiary of Sacks’ political judgment: Kim Foxx, whose tenure I consider a disaster for Chicago. Sacks backed Foxx’s 2020 reelection effort with $1.1 million, more than a million dollars to help secure another term. George Soros’ Democracy PAC separately supplied $2 million to a PAC supporting Foxx.
Sacks’ self-promoted narrative aims to portray himself as a selfless, successful businessman driven by a desire for good governance. While there is no doubt that he relishes and covets the spotlight as a major influencer while screaming persecution at the criticism, the fact remains that his company has been a massive beneficiary of earnings secured through the management of city, school district, and state pension funds.
Sacks himself described money as part of his political counterattack. According to the Sun-Times, Sacks flat out said he would contribute as much as $500,000 to a political organization backing his preferred candidates and was prepared to spend more if he was personally attacked.
Sacks was a vital Emanuel financial and political ally
This is not speculation. WBEZ’s campaign-finance database lists Michael Sacks, Cari Sacks, and Michael J. Sacks among Emanuel’s largest donors and shows people reporting Grosvenor Capital Management as their employer accounting for roughly $1.56 million in contributions in its dataset. Contemporary reporting went further. One account calculated that Sacks, his family, and Grosvenor employees contributed more than $3.6 million to funds supporting Emanuel. It described Sacks as Emanuel’s close friend and number-one campaign contributor.
Sacks bought himself extensive influence on the Emanuel administration
The money was private. The influence reached into public business. This isn’t a characterization invented after the fact. Sacks was simultaneously vice chairman of World Business Chicago, with Emanuel as chairman, and was publicly described as Emanuel’s closest friend and chief business adviser.
Emanuel made Sacks vice-chairman of World Business Chicago while Emanuel himself served as chairman. Sacks held the position for eight years (2011–2019), essentially encompassing Emanuel’s entire mayoralty. Sacks also sat on Emanuel’s Economic Council and co-chaired the Mayor’s Plan for Economic Growth and Jobs.
Sacks didn’t need public office to participate in governing. Voters could remove the mayor; they could not vote Sacks out of his ear. He occupied a quasi-public/civic position alongside the mayor while simultaneously running one of Chicago’s largest alternative asset managers. In 2013, Chicago magazine reported that no outsider appeared on Emanuel’s schedule more often than Sacks and quoted a City Hall insider: “If we had a commerce secretary, it’d be Michael.”
By 2015, Chicago wrote of Sacks on pensions and other difficult financial issues: “nobody has the mayor’s ear more.” One year later, Chicago titled a profile of Sacks as “Michael Sacks Is the Rahm Whisperer.” It described him as Emanuel’s unpaid confidant and “go-to adviser.” Quoting David Axelrod, the longtime political consultant characterized the relationship between Sacks and Emanuel as “Rahm gives Michael assignments.” The article then went on to reveal how Sacks participated in the city’s effort to renegotiate aspects of the parking-meter deal and quoted Alderman Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward) saying Sacks played a substantive role and sat at negotiating tables with businesses.
Sacks/Grosvenor built a remarkable bench of Chicago political insiders
Sacks’ list of political insiders employed by him may be unprecedented. These included three former Emanuel chiefs of staff, two of whom were also former Emanuel chief operating officers, and two former Emanuel senior advisors and legislative directors whose work included negotiations on public-employee pension-funding legislation. All were provided prominent positions at Grosvenor. Public service should not be a recruitment pipeline for businesses seeking government access. The revolving door deserves scrutiny from the people left standing outside it.
Sacks’ reach extended into the press
In 2011, Sacks was a board member of the Sun-Times’ ownership company while serving alongside Emanuel at World Business Chicago. In 2019, he reinvested through an entity controlling a majority of the newspaper’s board seats. A former Chicago Federation of Labor president and key Emanuel labor ally served as the chairman of the board (and chairman of the parent company, ST Acquisition Holdings) of the Sun-Times.
Campaign money, City Hall access, and a seat inside the newspaper’s ownership structure: Readers can judge that concentration of influence for themselves during the period when Sacks effectively controlled the Sun-Times.
Sacks’ Grosvenor received enormous amounts of public pension money
The Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois (TRS) had approximately $448 million in Grosvenor vehicles in 2011, the same year Emanuel took office. TRS said in 2020 that Grosvenor continued to administer $316 million after a $75 million redemption. Rahm left office in 2019, and the money to Grosvenor started to decline quickly. The 2025 TRS disclosure still showed approximately $68.4 million under contract and about $650,000 in FY2025 fees. Now, with Mayor Johnson, the money to Grosvenor is far lower than in the days of Emanuel.
Grosvenor profited even when pensioners didn’t receive good returns
The Illinois State Board of Investment paid Grosvenor at least approximately $9.6 million in disclosed management fees from FY2006–2013 alone, based on the Auditor General reports we reviewed. Asset managers generally collect management fees regardless of whether the client beats its benchmark. GCM’s current SEC disclosures demonstrate the economics: it charges management fees across its strategies and also earns performance fees on some assets. Its SEC-filed June 2026 presentation reports its Diversified Multi-Strategy Composite at 7.2 percent net annualized since inception, far lower than simple no-fee investments in the S&P 500.
Political money, privileged access, public pension business: Chicago deserves to know where each relationship ends and the next begins. Grosvenor made money even if pensioners didn’t, but the fees were real. Taxpayers deserve an equally concrete accounting of the value received.
The pension angle was specifically part of his City Hall influence
The 2015 Chicago magazine Power 100 profile specifically connected Sacks’ influence to “solving the pension crisis and other thorny financial issues” while describing him as the person with the mayor’s ear. Sacks was advising Emanuel on Chicago’s pension crisis while the company Sacks controlled was in the business of managing public pension money. A Chicago Tribune investigation reported that during meetings with Emanuel’s senior aides on major subjects, including the city budget and pension reform, Sacks was sometimes the only private civilian in the room.
City Hall fought litigation over Sacks/Emanuel communications
The Better Government Association went to court seeking access to Emanuel’s communications conducted through private email. The disputed communications included emails involving Michael Sacks, whom contemporary reporting described as Emanuel’s most influential business adviser. The city withheld hundreds of emails, and litigation ensued over disclosure and exemptions. This is more than a story of just a rich guy who was friends with the mayor.
Chicago does not need another arrangement in which insiders enjoy privileged access while voters need a lawsuit to find out what is going on behind closed doors. If this arrangement served the public so well, the public deserved to see the correspondence. In my view, Emanuel’s resistance raises an obvious question: What did he not want the public to see? He and Sacks should answer it.
Chicago’s leadership should not be bought in advance
When someone gives millions to support a mayor, takes a prominent civic appointment, and runs a business managing public pension money, voters deserve access to his correspondence with that mayor about public business. Private wealth should not buy a shield from public scrutiny. In my view, this is precisely the kind of insider dealing Chicago does not need again.
We all know the type: The shadow managers and dynastic brokers who manage to turn every public crisis into a private payday while the rest of us foot the bill. When candidates hoard staggering war chests funded by the city’s chronic insiders, you aren't looking at a grassroots movement, you’re looking at a hostile takeover. Stop letting the architects of lopsided deals treat elected offices like part of their investment portfolio. Shut the door on the pay-to-play cartel, reject the handpicked proxies, and demand a city that answers to its neighborhoods, not its unelected power brokers.
While CTU-backed Mayor Johnson needs to be retired and Dominguez should never become president of the Board of Education, there are far better and viable candidates available than who Sacks is backing. Chicago needs leaders who answer to voters. This billionaire’s financial backing shouldn’t be the admission requirement for public leadership.
