Former SEC Chair Jay Clayton Will Become Apollo’s “Lead Independent Director”

As if the establishment ignoring Janet Yellen’s clear ties to Citadel wasn’t enough to help you lose faith in the Wall Street swamp this year, we’ll do you one better. Former SEC Chair Jay Clayton has officially been hired by Apollo Global Management, just weeks after stepping down as SEC chair.

Apollo is, of course, the firm whose CEO, Leon Black, was found to have paid child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein $158 million. 

Clayton was named the firm’s lead independent director, a newly created role that is “intended to tighten corporate governance,” according to Forbes. 

Clayton is also expected to return to his role at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, where he was a partner, according to the Wall Street Journal. He will be “senior policy adviser and of counsel,” WSJ reports. He will also continue as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

Clayton said: “Over the last two decades Apollo has been at the forefront of the allocation of capital. Our markets are going to change, and they want to be part of that.”

He is expected to start at Apollo on March 1. 

Recall, we wrote back in January that Leon Black stepped down as CEO of Apollo as Apollo revealed the conclusion of a review by law firm Dechert into Black’s relationship with the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, which reportedly “cleared” Black and Apollo of any “involvement in criminal activities” with Epstein.

“I have advised the Apollo board that I will retire as C.E.O. on or before my 70th birthday in July and remain as chairman,” Black said in a statement in January.

But over the past year and a half, Apollo CEO and founder Leon Black had been caught in a web of allegations that he was “too close” to suicided and disgraced pedophile Jeffrey Epstein after it emerged Black had paid Epstein $158 million after he was released from jail.

And while Black published a letter in which he admitted that “it was a terrible mistake” to associated with Epstein and “like many people I respected, I decided to give Epstein a second chance,” Black said last October, it wasn’t nearly enough as some asset managers froze their new capital allocations to Apollo. It eventually prompted Apollo to hire Dechert to conduct an “independent review” of Black’s dealings with Epstein to clear Black’s – and Apollo’s – name.

We hope Clayton isn’t making the same “terrible mistake”. 

Apollo something something Epstein something something Elon consulted Epstein after 420 something something Clayton.

Got it. https://t.co/Z8sEFzdxlM

— TC (@TESLAcharts) February 18, 2021