Tucker is really going off the rails 1/3
Bill Ackman
@BillAckman
@TuckerCarlson went on a rant yesterday @TPUSA and suggested that I was in Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘constellation of people’ who have been getting away with scams. His evidence is that ‘the most useless people have no actual skills become billionaires.” He referred to me as an example of one of the most useless billionaires in Jeffrey Epstein’s constellation:
“[C]an you answer the question: ‘How did Bill Ackman get $9 billion?’ Bill Ackman, a pretty impressive guy? I know Bill Ackman. No. Bill Ackman is like well-connected and super aggressive; that’s it. I think well connected, super aggressive people deserve a fair living like everybody else, but if you are accruing nine [billion] dollars just because you are willing to do anything, I don’t know why we have to pretend that that is good.”
In order to address Tucker’s defamatory statements, I thought it would be useful to share a few facts:
I never met Jeffrey Epstein, flew on his planes, went to any of his parties and/or properties, or interacted with him ever. When my wife was a professor at MIT, she received a $125,000 grant from Epstein (prior to my knowing of her existence). She met Epstein once for 45 minutes at the request of the head of the MIT MediaLab, made a presentation about her work, and later got a grant. That was the last time she ever met or spoke to Jeffrey Epstein. If this is why Tucker thinks I am in Jeffrey Epstein’s constellation, it’s clear he doesn’t know anything about astronomy.
With respect to how I generated a net worth of more than $9 billion, I share the following:
I inherited good genes from wonderful parents who instilled good values in me. I never received an allowance so I worked odd jobs washing and waxing cars, digging ditches, lawn and tree care, etc. for pocket money beginning when I was about 10.
My parents gave me a huge head start by paying for my education including college and business school. I paid for my housing and expenses, and they paid for my tuition. I worked through college selling advertising for the Let’s Go Harvard Student Travel Guides. I learned a lot about sales working in a basement of a dorm smiling and dialing small hostels, hotels, and car rental companies around the world selling ads to strangers.
After college I went to work for my dad’s real estate mortgage brokerage company. I received a $40,000 draw and generated more than $600,000 in commissions in 18 months, making me one of the largest, if not the largest producer during my short term there.I received only 15% of the commissions I generated which contributed to my choosing to pursue an alternative career as an investor, and went to business school to learn more about investing.
When I graduated from business school, my parents gave me $100,000 in a settlor trust.My dad said that I would never inherit anything more as he wanted me to 'make it on my own.' The funds never left the trust, and I don’t include them in my net worth.
My good economic fortune comes largely from compounding, that is, investing over the long term and building a successful investment business. I started a hedge fund called Gotham Partners when I graduated from business school. I guess you could call me aggressive, but I wasn’t well connected then so my strategy was to cold call super rich people that I found on the Forbes 400 list to raise money.
I called about 100 or more people and managed to get 25 or so meetings and raise $2.8 million from six people. Four of the six were on the Forbes list. One was a guy my then-girlfriend (eventually my first wife’s) mother sold an apartment to, and another was the father of a classmate from business school. My dad initially refused to invest, calling the launch of a hedge fund with no experience a stupid idea, but when he saw other much wealthier people commit, he put in $200,000.
Gotham Partners, as we called it, generated strong returns with ultimately $500 million under management, but it had a somewhat ignominious end 10 years later. We had shorted MBIA and bought CDS on the company, and I wrote a white paper on why the company did not deserve its triple-A credit rating
http://briem.com/files/Ackman_MBIA_12092002.pdf).
https://x.com/BillAckman/status/1944245408751894631