David Tepper is known as the founder of Appaloosa Management but he is best known as a hedge fund manager who currently actively involved in philanthropic activities. Appaloosa Management specializes in distressed debt and companies. He has a net worth of $11.3 billion as of April 2019.

After taking his MBA degree from the Carnegie Mellon University, David Tepper started working at the treasury department of the Ohio-based Republic Steel. Later on, he worked at the Keystone Mutual Funds, which is now part of the Evergreen Funds based in Boston. A year later, he was recruited by the Goldman Sachs where he worked for 8 years as credit analyst who specializes in special situations and bankruptcies. After his long tenure at Goldman Sachs, he left the company and began forming his own company which is now known as the Appaloosa Management. In 2009, he was declared by the New York Times as the world's top-earning hedge fund manager. In 2009, his firm earned $7 billion from buying distressed financial stocks and earned profit from the recovery of the stocks.