Billionaire investor and Harvard graduate Ken Griffin had demanded the Ivy League school forcefully condemn Hamas’ attack on Israel — and vowed his Wall Street firm would never hire students who signed a letter blaming the massacre on the Jewish state, according to a report.
Griffin, CEO of the powerful hedge fund Citadel, contacted the head of the university’s board last Monday to express his anger over the tepid response by Harvard President Claudine Gay’s office to the carnage, The New York Times reported over the weekend.
Harvard has come under fire from other famous alums including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and another billionaire hedge fund manager, Bill Ackman, over the school’s handling of letter signed by more than 30 student groups who blamed Israel.
Griffin, who has donated half a billion dollars to his alma mater, called for a full-throated defense of Israel in a conversation with Penny Pritzker, a senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation, one of two boards that govern the school, according to The Times.
The day after he spoke with Pritzker, the billionaire former Commerce Secretary under Barack Obama and the sister of Gov. JB Pritzker (D-Ill.), Gay issued a more forceful condemnation of the terror attacks, which killed more than 1,300 Israelis.
The Post has sought comment from Citadel and Harvard.
Despite the school’s harsher stance, Griffin, 55, echoed Ackman and other CEOs who said they will blacklist students whose groups were signatories to the pro-Hamas letter.
Griffin — whose net worth was valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $35.9 billion as of Monday — told The Times that the students “would have been considered adults one hundred years ago” and that the decision to add their groups’ names to the letter was “unforgivable.”
“How do you end up in such a twisted place?” Griffin asked The Times.
Miami-based Citadel is one of the most desirable firms in the nation, offering internships that pay $19,000 a month.
Gay has pushed back on attempts to name students who signed the letter, asserting the school “embraces a commitment to free expression” in a video released Thursday night — in which she also again condemned Hamas’ brutality.
Ackman has been adamant about Harvard naming the students who signed the letter issued by the Palestine Solidarity Committee.
“If you were managing a business, would you hire someone who blamed the despicable violent acts of a terrorist group on the victims?” Ackman wrote on X early Thursday. “I don’t think so.”
“Would you hire someone who was a member of a school club who issued a statement blaming lynchings by the KKK on their victims?” Ackman wrote. “I don’t think so.”
But Summers, who was “sickened” by the university’s initially slow response to the student letter, said Ackman was “getting a bit carried away” by demanding a blacklist, which he called “the stuff of Joe McCarthy.”
“This letter was issued six hours after the attacks,” Summers told Bloomberg News. “Many in the groups had no idea that there was going to be a letter … Some I’m sure were naive and stupid.”
“Now is not the time for demonizing students,” Summers said.
Griffin isn’t the only billionaire from the world of finance who has used his influence to demand that a university change its approach toward the Israel-Hamas war.
Elizabeth Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, issued a statement saying that the Philadelphia-based school “should have moved faster” in condemning Hamas after its assault on Israel last weekend.
Magill’s statement came after Marc Rowan, the CEO of private equity behemoth Apollo Global Management whose net worth is valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $6.9 billion, demanded that donors cut off funds from UPenn and that Magill and the board of trustee’s chairperson be fired.
Rowan, a graduate of UPenn’s prestigious Wharton School, was reportedly outraged that the university declined to condemn a literary festival that featured pro-Palestinian speakers.