York's initiative to bring the summer Olympic Games to New York City in 2012, which failed when London won. Ross is chairman of Equinox Holdings, and chairperson emeritus of the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), the city's leading real estate trade association. As a member of the board of trustees of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Ross was involved in the planning of a major renovation of the Frank Lloyd Wright iconic building and other new museums. He is a trustee of New York Presbyterian Hospital, the Urban Land Institute, the NY Chapter of Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, the Levin Institute and is a director of the Jackie Robinson Foundation and the World Resources Institute. Ross serves on the Board for the Cornell Tech Campus, a $2B redevelopment of Roosevelt Island including the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, a partnership between Cornell University and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology that when completed will house several thousand post-graduate students, hundreds of faculty, and a high-tech business incubator. Ross invested in a partnership named RERI that was donated to the University of Michigan in 2003. RERI obtained its own appraisal for the donation in the amount of $32.935 million. The university sold the Ross-donated remainder interest in December, 2005 for $1.94 million, below the $6.5 million appraised value. The IRS denied the entire $33 million tax deduction and imposed a multi-million dollar penalty in July, 2017. Ross's longtime accountant Alan Katz and business associate, Harold Levine were instrumental in the partnership. They are currently under criminal investigation for the tax plan. Politics Ross was a major supporter and contributor to the 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. In August 2019, it was reported that Ross would host a major fundraiser for Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign at his Hamptons home on August 9. In response to calls for boycotts of companies owned by Ross, a spokesperson for Equinox and SoulCycle told CNN, "Neither Equinox nor SoulCycle have anything to do with the event later this week and do not support it. As is consistent with our policies, no company profits are used to fund politicians." Ross is a major investor in Ladder Capital, a "shadow bank". Around the time Trump became president, Ross attempted a takeover of Ladder Bank. He was unsuccessful, but did purchase an $80 million stake. According to the former President's 2019 financial