He graduated from the college preparatory high school Baltimore City College, at the time an all-male school, and then from Duke University Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude in 1970. He earned his J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1973, where he was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review.

From 1973 to 1975, Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. From 1975 to 1976, he served as chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. Rubenstein also served as a deputy domestic policy advisor to President Jimmy Carter and worked in private practice in Washington, D.C.

Rubenstein lives in Bethesda, Maryland, and was married to Alice Rubenstein (née Alice Nicole Rogoff), founder of the Alaska House New York and the Alaska Native Arts Foundation and former owner of Alaska Dispatch News. They met while both were working for the Carter Administration and married on May 21, 1983. They have three children, Alexandra, Gabrielle, and Andrew. The couple divorced on December 8, 2017.

In 1987, Rubenstein founded The Carlyle Group with William E. Conway, Jr. and Daniel A. D’Aniello. The firm has grown into a global investment firm with $223 billion of assets under management, with more than 1,550 employees in 31 offices on six continents.

Rubenstein served as chairman of the board of trustees of Duke University from 2013 to 2017. Rubenstein has made several gifts to Duke University. He donated $5 million to Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy in 2002, after which Rubenstein Hall was named for him. In 2009, he donated an additional $5.75 million to the school. In 2011, he also donated $13.6 million to the Duke University Libraries in support of renovating the university’s special collections library, which was named the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. In 2012, he donated $15 million to support the university’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative. That same year, he gave another $10 million to support Duke Athletics. In 2013, Rubenstein donated $10 million to fund graduate fellowships and undergraduate internships at the Sanford School of Public Policy. In 2014, Rubenstein donated $1.9 million to Jewish Life at Duke to expand programming, fund building renovations and enhance the college experience for Jewish students. In 2015, Rubenstein gave $25 million towards the new $50 million, 71,000-square foot Arts Center, set to be inaugurated in 2017. In 2017, he gave Duke another $20 million to endow a scholarship for first generation, low income students.

In December 2007 Rubenstein purchased the last privately owned copy of the Magna Carta at Sotheby’s auction house in New York for $21.3 million. He has lent it to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. In 2011, Rubenstein gave $13.5 million to the National Archives for a new gallery and visitor’s center. He has purchased rare so-called Stone copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, and the Constitution and has lent these documents to the State Department, the National Archives, the National Constitution Center, the Smithsonian and Mount Vernon.

Rubenstein was elected to the board of trustees of the University of Chicago on May 31, 2007.

In May 2008, Rubenstein said: “But once this period is over, once the debt on the books of the banks is sold and new lending starts, I think you’ll see the private equity industry coming back in what I call the Platinum Age – better than it’s ever been before. I do think that the private equity industry has a great future and that the greatest period for private equity is probably ahead of us.”

Rubenstein was elected Chairman of the Board of the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC, starting in May 2010. He was Vice Chairman of the Board of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, and chairman of its fundraising drive. A new atrium was named for him. He is Chairman of the board of regents of the Smithsonian Institution.

In 2010, 2013 and 2016, he provided a total of $33 million to the Law School for scholarships. The gifts will fund up to 60 full-tuition scholarships in three consecutive Law School graduating classes. Approximately 10 percent of all students from the Classes of 2017, 2018, and 2019 will be Rubenstein Scholars.

In December 2011, Rubenstein donated $4.5 million to the National Zoo for its giant panda reproduction program. The panda complex was then named the David M. Rubenstein Family Giant Panda Habitat for the next five years and conservation biologists in the U.S. and China who are awarded National Zoo fellowships for their work to save pandas would be named “David M. Rubenstein Fellows.” Another $4.5 million was donated in September 2015, about four weeks after a male giant panda cub was born. He also donated $10 million to the National Gallery of Art in support of refurbishment and expansion of the East Building of the National Gallery, work that was completed in September 2016. He is on the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery.

In 2012, he donated $7.5 million towards the repair of the Washington Monument.

In 2013, he donated $50 million to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which is being used for a 65,000 square foot addition.

In April 2013 and 2015, he donated a total of $20 million to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which was used to rebuild at least two buildings in the enslaved community on Mulberry Row at Monticello. The funds were also used to restore Jefferson’s original road scheme, restore the second and third stories of Jefferson’s home which were mostly empty, and replace infrastructure.

In November 2013, he bought a copy of the Bay Psalm Book for $14.1 million, the highest price ever paid for a printed book, and pledged to lend it to public collections and exhibitions around the world.

In 2014, he donated $10 million to Montpelier, to support the renovation of the home of James Madison.

In 2014, he provided the lead funding for a Forum to serve as the University’s principal conference center.

In November 2015, he donated $20 million for the New Commons Building at the Institute for Advanced Study. The building will be named Rubenstein Commons and will feature conference space, meeting rooms, a cafe, and office space.

Rubenstein hosts The David Rubenstein Show: Peer to Peer Conversations, which airs on Bloomberg Television and many PBS stations, and is available on CuriosityStream. The show began airing in October, 2016.

On February 15, 2016, Presidents’ Day, Rubenstein presented a gift of $18.5 million to the National Park Foundation to expand educational resources, foster public access, and repair and restore the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The Park Service plans to create 15,000 square feet of visitor space in the undercroft of the memorial. This gift, presented during National Park Service’s centennial year, was Rubenstein’s fourth gift to benefit US national parks. On December 2, 2016, Rubenstein in conjunction with the National Parks Foundation, agreed to cover the cost of elevator upgrades to the Washington Monument. The monument reopened on September 19, 2019.

In October 2016, he donated $15 million to the Department Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to create a hearing center focused on restoring functional hearing loss.

In 2018, he formed Declaration Capital, a family office focused on venture, growth, and family-owned businesses.

In October 2019, Rubenstein’s first book was published. Called The American Story: Interviews with Master Historians (Simon & Schuster), the book features interviews with historians talking about their areas of historical expertise. Among others, Rubenstein interviews David McCullough on John Adams, Jon Meachem on Thomas Jefferson, Ron Chernow on Alexander Hamilton, and Walter Isaacson on Benjamin Franklin.

In October 2019, the National Parks Foundation announced that David Rubenstein donated $10 million for upgrades to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. The gift funds a new and expanded museum within the memorial that was expected to be completed in time for the memorial’s 80th anniversary in 2023.