(L-R) Sam Bankman-Fried (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)/Bill Ackman (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
In the midst of the storm surrounding fallen crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman emerged as an unexpected defender, drawing parallels from his own past encounters with the legal system. Bankman-Fried faces criminal charges following the collapse of his FTX exchange in November, with accusations of wire fraud and money laundering violations. Interestingly, Ackman is the same man who pushed for the forced resignation of Harvard University President Claudine Gay months later.
Gay resigned from her position as president of Harvard after just six months. Her departure comes in the wake of allegations of plagiarism and criticism for what was deemed an insufficient response to campus antisemitism. As the first Black president and only the second woman to hold this coveted role in the university’s 388-year history, Gay’s tenure is the briefest in Harvard’s annals.
A Harvard alum and donor, Ackman actively campaigned for the resignations of Gay, MIT President Sally Kornblut, and Upenn President Elizabeth Magill. This campaign followed their perceived failure to unequivocally condemn antisemitism on their respective college campuses during a congressional hearing last month.
But when fraudster Bankman-Fried got in hot water, Ackman wrote a lengthy X/Twitter thread posted emphasizing the importance of presuming innocence until guilt is proven, reflecting on his own experience as the subject of a high-profile market manipulation investigation in 2002, Forbes reported. He recounts facing public scrutiny and being “presumed guilty by the public at large” during the investigations, despite no evidence of wrongdoing being found.
“Let’s not sacrifice our core values in a rush to convict @SBF_FTX as it does no one any good. It doesn’t bring anyone to justice faster or return investor funds any faster. At best it makes some unhappy investors feel better that someone is suffering consequences for their loss,” Ackman tweeted in January 2023, Business Insider reported.
Considering his passionate backing for SBF some say it should be odd he wanted Gay out so badly. But then again, her ouster fit into the billionaire’s anti-DEI agenda.
Ackman penned a 4,000 word takedown of DEI programs, which he posted on social media platform X following the departure of Gay, CBS News.
Interestingly, Business Insider recently uncovered that Neri Oxman, who wed Ackman in 2019, seems to have committed plagiarism. According to the outlet, Oxman, a former MIT professor, engaged in “multiple instances of plagiarism,” incorporating unattributed text from over a dozen Wikipedia articles into her PhD dissertation and neglecting to cite other sources. Following the first report, Oxman admitted to not crediting an academic’s work and apologized for failing to use quotation marks in certain instances. Ackman, expressing displeasure, vowed to investigate Business Insider’s “reporters and staff,” The Guardian reported.
(L-R) Sam Bankman-Fried (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)/Bill Ackman (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
