Michael Rubens Bloomberg was born on February 14, 1942 in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston to a Jewish family of Russian and Polish descent.

In 1945 him and his family settled in Medford, a Boston suburb, where Bloomberg lived until after he graduated from college.

After the diploma, he attended Johns Hopkins University and in 1964 he graduated in electrical engineering. Later he received his MBA degree from Harvard Business School.

He started his carreer as a general partner at Salomon Brothers, where he headed equity trading and, later, systems development.

In 1981, he was fired from Salomon Brothers and the company gave him $10 million severance package.

Using this money, Bloomberg went on to set up a company named Innovative Market Systems, which first customer was Merrill Lynch. The company installed 20 Market Master terminals and investing $30 million in Bloomberg's comapny.

In 1986 the company was renamed Bloomberg L.P.

By 1987, it had installed 5,000 terminals and it launched new produsts, such Bloomberg Tradebook (a trading platform), the Bloomberg Messaging Service, and the Bloomberg newswire.

As of 2009, the company had more than 250,000 terminals worldwide.

Bloomberg L.P. also has a radio network.

In 2001 he left the position of CEO to pursue a political career as the mayor of New York.

A lifelong Democrat before seeking elective office, Bloomberg switched his registration in 2001 and ran for mayor as a Republican, winning the election that year and a second term in 2005.

He was replaced as CEO by Lex Fenwick. The company is now led by president Dan Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor under Bloomberg.

In March 2009 Forbes reported Michael Bloomberg's wealth as $16 billion, meaning he was one of the most successful billionaires in the United States during the recession, and the wealthiest individual in New York City.

Bloomberg married Susan Brown in 1975. They had two daughters: Emma (b. ca. 1979) and Georgina (b. 1983).

In 1993 they divorced. He is currently romantically linked with former New York state banking superintendent Diana Taylor.