Wall Street billionaire and longtime Democratic donor Bill Ackman has catapulted into the spotlight in recent months by pushing back against people and policies championed by the Democrats.
Once a strong ally of former President Barack Obama, Ackman has moved on to slamming President Joe Biden for his age and more progressive institutions such as Harvard University, where he is a major donor, for responses to the Israel-Hamas war — a sign that once-prominent Democratic allies are trending away from the party over schisms in policy and morals.
Though most of his donations go toward Democrats, Ackman has financially supported Republicans in the past. He supported Obama’s campaign in 2008 but then donated $53,000 to Utah Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, as well as the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2012, according to OpenSecrets.
There have been numerous rumors of personal animosity between Ackman and Biden, particularly after a report surfaced in Fox Business that Biden slapped Ackman for talking about his deceased son, Beau Biden, at a dinner for the SkyBridge Alternatives hedge fund meetup. Ackman said the story’s claims were “absolutely and totally false” in a post to X and moved to get it corrected, but he blasted the Biden campaign for choosing to “let it run because his team perhaps thought it looked good for him to play tough with a hedge fund manager.”
Here are other times when Ackman has spoken out against Biden or left-leaning organizations.
Ackman slams Biden as “embarrassing”
The hedge fund billionaire said in an appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast that Biden “is done” as president and called him a national embarrassment.
“I think he’s done,” Ackman said, referring to Biden. “I mean, it’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing for the country having him … as a presidential candidate, let alone the president of the country. It’s crazy. And it’s just gonna get worse and worse. And he should, you know, the worst of his legacy is his ego that prevents him from stepping aside. And that’s it. It’s his ego, and it is so wrong and so bad and so embarrassing.”
He said he hears from people all over the world about how embarrassing it is for Biden to be president and that he is not competent enough to be serving in the White House now, let alone receive another term.
“Being president of the United States is like some combination of wrestling, marathon running, being a triathlete,” he continued. “I mean, you gotta be in serious physical shape and at the top of your game to represent this country, and he is a far cry from that, and it’s just getting worse, and it’s embarrassing.”
Ackman breaks from establishment and endorses Dean Phillips
In January, Ackman made an unexpected but not necessarily surprising endorsement of Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) for the Democratic presidential nomination. He said he would be contributing $1 million to Phillips’s campaign, and he believes the congressman “has a credible path to winning the nomination despite what the oddsmakers may think.”
The endorsement confirmed some of the worst fears for the Biden campaign: that longtime donors and voters may be growing sour on his reelection bid and abandoning him for fresh blood.
Ackman has also warned Biden that the longer he stays on the ballot, the more he is “handing the election to Trump.”
Ackman blames loss of U.S. soldiers on “weak American leadership”
The billionaire blamed Biden for the deaths of three U.S. soldiers who were killed in a drone attack at a base in Jordan at the end of January. At least 40 other people were injured in the attack.
“Our enemies perceive weak American leadership, which has allowed them to attack us with impunity at a grave cost to our servicemen,” Ackman wrote in an X post on Jan. 28. “We arrived at a place where our enemies do not fear us.”
“We are not respected, and the world is a much more dangerous place as a result,” Ackman said. “We need strength and leadership in the White House. The idea that @POTUS Biden should continue for another term is dangerous and absurd.”
Ackman vocal on Claudine Gay to lose Harvard presidency
Ackman was one of several Harvard donors who scaled back or stopped donations to the university after then-Harvard President Claudine Gay refused to say whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated the university rules on targeted harassment during a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C.
The billionaire was very vocal in his support of Gay losing her job, as well as blasting students for displays of antisemitism — a rising occurrence on college campuses since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and the Jewish state escalated war against the Palestinian terrorist group.
After Gay resigned in early January, Ackman called for the resignation of the corporation board members who supported keeping Gay in the position.
Billionaire calls DEI “racist”
Ackman said in a lengthy post to X that he “first became concerned” with Harvard University’s operations after 34 student organizations signed a letter blaming the “Israeli regime” for all the violence that followed in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks.
The Harvard alum called the letter and the actions of the student organizations blatant antisemitism and demanded Harvard release the names of the students who blamed Israel for the conflict. He said many CEOs asked for the release so as not to “inadvertently hire any of their members.”
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However, he said diversity, equity, and inclusion is the root cause of the problem. He said DEI is “racist” and is an “important contributor” to divisiveness and growing resentment on college campuses and in the country.
“Racism against white people has become considered acceptable by many not to be racism, or alternatively, it is deemed acceptable racism,” Ackman wrote. “While this is, of course, absurd, it has become the prevailing view in many universities around the country.”