Wall Street billionaire Leon Black steps down as CEO and chairman of Apollo effective immediately, 2 months after an investigation into his Jeffrey Epstein links

• Leon Black is stepping down as CEO and chairman at Apollo Global Management effective immediately.
• Apollo said in January that Black would step down as CEO by July 31 but would remain chairman.
• It follows an investigation into Black's financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Leon Black, the CEO and chairman of Apollo Global Management, is stepping down effective immediately, the company announced Monday.

Black's departure from the investment firm comes sooner than expected. At the end of January, Apollo said Black would step down following an independent investigation into his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which showed he paid $158 million to the disgraced financier from 2012 to 2017.

At the time, the company said Black, 69, would step down as CEO on or before July 31 but would remain chairman.

Black is now handing over the role of chairman to Jay Clayton, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman who recently became an independent director at the company. The Apollo cofounder Marc Rowan is taking over as CEO.

In a statement, Black said it was "the ideal moment to step back and focus on my family, my wife Debra's and my health issues, and my many other interests."

Read more: Apollo exec Marc Rowan says he expects up to $20 billion from investors this year as the firm makes a raft of changes post-Jeffrey Epstein investigation

"Over the past 30-plus years, my cofounders, Marc, Josh Harris and I, have worked extremely hard to make Apollo a franchise built for enduring success," he said. "I believe strongly that Apollo's best days lie ahead."

Review into Black's ties to Epstein

The money that Black paid to Epstein was for a "variety of issues related to trust and estate planning, tax, philanthropy, and the operation of the Family Office," the January review by the law firm Dechert found.

The review said neither Black nor Apollo was involved in any of Epstein's criminal activity. There was also "no evidence that Epstein ever introduced Black, or offered to introduce Black, to any underage woman," it said.

Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a teenage girl in 2008 and served 13 months in a state jail.

He was arrested again in July 2019 on federal sex-trafficking charges involving minors and died by suicide one month later in federal prison.