Blackstone Group, the private equity firm co-founded and led by Schwarzman, spent millions to defeat Proposition 21 and Proposition 10 in California. The initiatives sought to expand rent control as Californians struggled to pay wildly inflated rents and avoid homelessness. Blackstone Group is one the largest corporate landlords in the world, with a global real estate portfolio worth $324 billion that includes 296,000 apartments and homes. The firm, for example, owns Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, a massive affordable housing complex that provides more than 11,000 lower- and middle-income units to some 30,000 tenants. In a controversial response to tenant protections passed in New York in 2019, Blackstone kept rent-regulated apartments vacant. Public outrage forced the corporate landlord to reverse that policy.