Biography
Jay Y. Lee is the executive chairman of Samsung Electronics and leader of the country's biggest conglomerate. He was appointed to the role in 2022, which had been left vacant since the death of his father in 2020. In 2017, he was jailed for bribing a confidante of former President Park Geun-hye, but was released in 2018. In 2021, through a retrial, he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, and then received a presidential pardon in 2022. In 2024, Lee was acquitted of stock manipulation charges related to a 2015 merger between two Samsung affiliates that prosecutors said helped Lee cement control of the Samsung conglomerate. Lee and his family are in the process of paying 12 trillion won (about $8.5 billion) in inheritance taxes following the 2020 death of patriarch Lee Kun-hee.