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Mega-Billionaire Ken Griffin Has Moved His Masterpieces to the Beach

By Nate Freeman

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In 2015, the hedge fund titan  Kenneth C. Griffin  became the first person to spend half a billion dollars on art in a single transaction.  David Geffen made a deal with Griffin to sell him Willem de Kooning’s boldly colored abstract masterpiece  Interchange for $300 million, and Jackson Pollock’s  Number 17A —the splatter painting  Life magazine  plastered in its pages in 1949 , minting Jack the Dripper an American celebrity—for $200 million. 

Griffin could have scurried away with the masterpieces to one of his homes: a $238 million apartment at 220 Central Park West and a $120 million London mansion near Buckingham Palace, the most expensive apartment in Chicago history, getaways in Aspen and Hawaii, a large chunk of Miami’s Star Island. Instead he let them go on view at the Art Institute of Chicago, placing 20th-century masterworks next to the museum’s iconic impressionist and postimpressionist holdings.

“My art collection is almost all at the Art Institute of Chicago, it’s been there for years,” Griffin said to David Rubenstein in March 2019, while appearing on his show  Peer-to-Peer Conversations. “For me, the fact that 700,000 or a million people a year will have a chance to see some of the greatest works of art of our culture, that I’m fortunate enough to own? I have great satisfaction in that.”

But at some point over the last few years, those two works, the Pollock and the de Kooning traded in the biggest art sale ever, were quietly taken down from the museum. Their whereabouts were unknown. 

The Saturday after Art Basel, I took a Brightline train from Miami to Palm Beach to attend openings and cocktails parties that make up the New Wave Art Weekend. At one point I swung by the Norton, the West Palm Beach museum that houses the collection of Ralph Hubbard Norton, a 20th-century steel magnate from Chicago who summered in Florida. I had seen the permanent collection twice in the past two years and thought I knew it pretty well, but after walking out from a gallery of top-notch work by Georgia O’Keeffe, Stuart Davis, and Edward Hopper, I saw a work made the year Norton died, something I had presumed would have been well out of the museum’s acquisitions budget: Mark Rothko’s No. 2 (Blue, Red and Green) (Yellow, Red, Blue on Blue) (1953), which exploded the artist’s market when it sold at Sotheby’s in 2000 for $11 million, or about $30 million accounting for inflation. 

As the wall text explained, it was at the Norton on loan from a private collection, after having been shown at the Art Institute of Chicago from October 2020 to June 2022. Also new was a peak Roy Lichtenstein masterwork,  Ohhh…Alright…  (1964), which set an artist record when it sold for $42.6 million at Christie’s, consigned by  Steve Wynn,  who bought it from  Steve Martin. It too was shown at the Art Institute of Chicago, and belongs, the wall text said, to a private collection. And across the hall, an untitled Robert Ryman that was on the walls of the great Chicago museum as recently as 2017 was hanging at the Norton, thanks to a private collection. 

Sources confirmed that all three came from Griffin. 

And then, around a corner and installed with little to no ceremony, were two works very much in a private collection, but a collection that everyone knows:  Interchange and  Number 17A, owned by Griffin. 

Without fanfare, at least a billion dollars of Griffin’s art departed the second-biggest encyclopedic institution in the country and ended up in Palm Beach. The Norton declined to comment when asked about the new works in its collection, as did the Art Institute, but Griffin provided a statement to True Colors on Thursday. 

“The Norton is one of our country’s most significant and beautiful museums,” Griffin said. “I hope South Florida families, students and visitors will enjoy and be inspired by these pieces and the thousands of works of art from all over the world displayed at the museum.”

Griffin was very public about moving Citadel, his hedge fund with over $50 billion in assets, to Miami  earlier this year . The prodigal son of the sunshine state—Griffin’s a Boca Raton native and a graduate of Boca Raton Community High School—returned in after decades of support for Chicago, the city he lived in since graduating from Harvard in 1989 and immediately crushed it with his own fund. 

In departing the Windy City, Griffin left behind the Illinois governor (and fellow billionaire) with whom he publicly feuded over raising taxes on the wealthy and what he claimed was a rising crime rate ( JB Pritzker ); and a gubernatorial candidate that Griffin bankrolled to the tune of $50 million only to see steamrolled in a Republican primary by a Trump-backed candidate ( Richard Irvin ). (On the other hand: Anne Dias-Griffin , his ex-wife and fellow hedgie who claimed in a yearlong divorce battle that she was forced to sign a prenup that only gave her a $1 million a year, also recently moved to Miami.) 

At the outset of the pandemic, Griffin rented out the entire Four Seasons in Palm Beach, parked off-duty cops outside, and restricted entry to anyone but his employees. He made Citadel’s move official in June,  taking space in a building owned by fellow art-collecting billionaire  Vlad Doronin, until a new HQ can be built. He’s spent weekends on Palm Beach, where he’s bought up sizable contiguous chunks of the south part of the island. 

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Griffin has also gone all in on  Ron DeSantis , the Florida governor who, in his successful reelection campaign in November, became the first Republican in decades to carry the once-hard-blue Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. Griffin told Politico  in a rare interview that his deep pockets would back the heir to MAGA-dom if he ran for president in 2024. Griffin’s already started to flex his political sway, in Florida and elsewhere. He donated more than $100 million to Republican candidates in 2022, and is very much over his next-door neighbor at Mar-a-Lago.

“[Trump] did a lot of things really well and missed the mark on some important areas,” Griffin told Politico. “And for a litany of reasons, I think it’s time to move on to the next generation.”

Ken Griffin got into art collecting by accident. In 1999, while on a work trip to New York, he stumbled into Sotheby’s and was taken by one of Degas’s sculptures of little ballet dancer girls. (Degas was so protective of the works he rarely showed them outside his studio.) Griffin had come in cold but after a 40-minute-long chat with Sotheby’s CEO  Dede Brooks  (who would be convicted in the auction house’s price-fixing scandal three years later) he  decided he would bid on the sculpture when it came up for auction in November. But he wasn’t aggressive enough to win it. 

“I was outbid, I was outbid—I tried to buy it, the hammer went down, it wasn’t my bid, I wasn’t willing to go that high,” Griffin said in the interview with Rubenstein. “I had never been so frustrated in my life. I hung up the phone, and I called Sotheby’s the next day and offered more money to buy it, and that was the start of my passion in art.”

He soon bought a Degas painting,  Dancers in Green, and a Monet water lilies painting, positioning him as a major collector of impressionist art. Each of those works would have been sold, even 20 years ago, in the mid eight figures. 

Six years later, Griffin’s collection had expanded to include two Cezannes—one that cost $60.5 million, bought from Wynn. In 2006 Griffin spent $80 million on Jasper Johns’s  False Start, buying it from Geffen. His big buying hasn’t stopped and his taste has expanded—in 2020 he bought a Basquiat for $100 million from  Peter Brant, another billionaire with a Palm Beach house. In 2021, he bought a Barnett Newman,  Uriel, (1955) for what was said to be more than the artist’s auction record of $84.2 million. (And let’s not forget how he outbid ConstitutionDAO—remember DAOs?—to win a copy of the historical document for $42 million,  just because his son wanted it .)

And like the Pollock and the de Kooning, the Newman and the Basquiat were all recently on long-term loan at the Art Institute of Chicago, which Griffin donated to generously. After giving $19 million to the museum for a new wing designed by Renzo Piano, the museum renamed its grand atrium Griffin Court. 

He also gave to various other Chi-town institutions, such as the University of Chicago, which received not just funding—$125 million to pay for financial aid and professors, earning him the naming rights to the economics department—but scores of artworks from his collection. In 2020, the David Rubenstein Forum put on view a number of works from Griffin’s collection, such as  Peter Doig ’s  Red House  (1995–1996) which Griffin bought at Phillips in 2017 for $21 million. There was also de Kooning’s  Untitled XII  (1981) last seen at a show at  Robert Mnuchin ’s gallery with  Dominique Levy in 2007, and Ed Clark’s  Untitled #2 (The Blue One) (2004) last seen at Mnuchin’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach 2019. 

But with the move to Florida complete, Griffin is no longer on the board of Chicago’s universities and museums. This year, he pledged $130 million to various institutions. A rep for Griffin told Bloomberg that the set of 40 organizations that Griffin donated to represented “ the fabric of Chicago .” It was dubbed  a parting gift . 

Griffin had a head start on his new home base. He had already donated enough money to the Norton—$20 million, in 2018—to earn him the naming rights to the new wing and the rights to name the museum’s directorship. It was,  Ghislain d’Humières, the Kenneth C. Griffin Director and CEO of the museum, who led me through  the special exhibition , “A Personal View on High Fashion & Street Style,” with hundreds of groundbreaking photo-based works culled from  Nicola Erni ’s epic photography collection. 

It’s one of the many highlights in the post–Basel Palm Beach landscape that come together as the New Wave Art Weekend, an annual excursion 70 miles north of Magic City. The Norton has its big shows up, the galleries all hold opening shindigs—Paula Cooper’s outpost of Worth Avenue had new work by  Julian Lethbridge and, while not officially part of the New Wave programming, Lehmann Maupin’s outpost at the Poinciana Plaza had new work by the photographer  Alex Prager. Globe-hopping members of the art world—Studio museum director  Thelma Golden, collector and patron  Ann Tenenbaum, artist  Marilyn Minter —pinballed from  Beth Rudin DeWoody ’s collection shows at The Bunker to White Cube’s seasonal space on West Palm Beach to the Breakers for cocktails. There were big bashes at some of the island’s craziest houses, including one at Norton board member  Kelly Williams ’s home overlooking the bay, and another at the home of  Lisa and James Cohen, which was built in the 1920s for financier Otto Kahn, the German-born magnate who was the primary inspiration for the mascot of a certain board game that came out in the ’30s. That’s right, there was a party at the  Monopoly Man estate. 

But not even Mr. Moneybags’ envious holdings could compete with the parcel of land being developed by Griffin, who has spent a decade methodically buying plots on Palm Beach island just south of Mar-a-Lago, until he had amassed $350 million worth of property, which will now host his homecoming. Talking to Bloomberg at the Norton’s 2019 gala Griffin said that his devotion to the museum had to do with his South Florida upbringing—that it was “an opportunity to do something special in Palm Beach, to honor my past and honor my future.”

So on that note, maybe bolting from Chicago with billions of dollars in paintings and installing them at a museum in Palm Beach—well, maybe it’s a personal gesture that only a mega-rich collector can pull off. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the museum’s final gallery, the one that houses the impressionist holdings of museum founder Ralph Norton, including Renoirs and Cezannes and Brancusi sculptures. Suddenly the works are right there: a Monet water lilies painting, the Degas painting  Dancers in Green, and the Degas sculpture  Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen.  

The first three artworks ever bought by one of the world’s great art collectors are currently installed right next to each other, as intimate an installation as in a private home.

Your crib sheet for comings and goings in the art world this week and beyond…

…The Met held its annual swanky Acquisitions Gala last week, and director  Max Hollein  welcomed a number of board members and supporters, all the usual suspects,  Niarchoses and  Mugrabis and  Glimchers, too many to name here. It’s probably the only place where Berlin art scene maestro  Klaus Biesenbach and Zero Bond’s  Scott Sartiano and former commerce secretary  Wilbur Ross can be under the same roof. Plus, where else can you see  Mike Bloomberg throwing it down with Patriots owner  Robert Kraft ? Only at The Met Acquisitions Gala, kids! 

… Gerhard Richter, maybe earth’s greatest living painter, is now represented by David Zwirner, the gallery started by the son of one of his earliest Cologne dealers. As Richter said in a rare statement, “I have known David since his childhood as I had already in the 1960s worked closely with his father, Rudolf Zwirner. I feel this represents a beautiful continuity across generations.” Richter left his longtime dealer,  Marian Goodman, herself a nonagenarian, and will have a show of new work with Zwirner in March 2023 in New York. 

… Rich Torrisi has opened his own namesake restaurant, called Torrisi Bar & Grill, offering a swerve from his best bro and business partner  Mario Carbone ’s namesake juggernaut. Like Carbone, though, there’s sick art in the joint, once again due to a collaboration with dealer  Vito Schnabel, who enlisted his dad,  Julian, for something really special. Hanging in the restaurant in the Puck Building is one of the elder Schnabel’s giant classic plate paintings, this one depicting the building’s namesake, the mischievous demon known as Puck. This is probably the best Puck Building–related news since, I dunno, the days of  Spy magazine? Certainly it’s the biggest art-world news there since maybe that time a  Harmony Korine  painting was stolen from the lobby in a crime that’s still unsolved ? Someone should really figure out what happened there. 

… Urs Fischer has a clothing line called UF—as in his initials, but also the guttural proclamation, I guess—and honestly, shit slaps. Go buy some at the temporary pop-up store that Fischer’s set up in  Jeffrey Deitch ’s Grand Street gallery.

January: Dinner for Jonas Wood at Grandmaster Recorders in Los Angeles

… Benny Blanco  rolling fatties, burgers to munch on, a dance party in a hut,  David Kordansky tearing up while toasting to Wood, collectors in khakis…  

February: Dinner for the opening of Prada Mode Los Angeles at Genghis Cohen  

… Martine Syms work installed throughout the Prada-ized Szechuan joint,  Jeff Goldblum  firmly in the cut, more weed,  The Cobrasnake papping  Jordan Wolfson, vibes midshift…

March: Cocktails for the opening of the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney in New York

…All the Rubells,  Alex Da Corte ’s brother painting the cube hosting an Alex Da Corte video, all four members of   the Red Hot Chili Peppers , everyone going to Pastis after…

April: Chanel Next Prize dinner at a 14th-century palazzo during the Venice Biennale

… Tilda Swinton and  Honor Swinton-Byrne, martinis with lemon twists flown in from the Amalfi Coast,  Kehinde Wiley saying,   “I can’t even get a cigarette, and I’m Kehinde Wiley” …

April: Dinner for the opening of “Human Brains” at the Fondazione Prada in Venice

… Francesco Vezzoli  talking about  Kim Kardashian,   Raf Simons smoking tiny Vogue cigarettes out the window,  Beeple sitting with Relational Aesthetics founder Nicolas Bourriaud, Nan Goldin and  Anselm Kiefer just a table apart…

May: MoMA PS1 Gala at MoMA PS1 in Queens

… Agnes Gund getting the entire art world to leave Manhattan for a night,  Rashid Johnson ’s perfect speech,  Mina Stone ’s perfect Greek food, drinking Tsipouro at the bar at Mina’s with artist  Alex Eagleton …

June: Boondoggles to Basel, Menorca, and Hydra

… Jeff Koons  chilling in the Greek isles on a yacht he designed called “Guilty,” grilled crustaceans, “getting a ride,” Nate not being there because his daughter was born…

August: Ballroom Marfa Summer Party at a private home in Bridgehampton

…Texans in the Hamptons, trapeze artists during the cocktail hour, David Lauren in a hippie sweater, Casa Dragones, mosquitos,  Robert Longo never taking off his sunglasses…

September: Dinner for Karma’s new Los Angeles gallery at Jones in Hollywood

…Every artist in Los Angeles, SF-bashing,  Sean MacPherson in the ’90s, rare  Ed Ruscha books, nobody wanting to go to Malibu…

October: White Cube’s Frieze dinner at the Chiltern Firehouse in London

…Real cigarettes, Brits with hyphenated last names who alway get in the  Tatler front-of-book,  Andre Balazs,   Jay Jopling running the city of London , more Casa Dragones…

November: Gagosian hosts a dinner for Sterling Ruby at The Nines in New York  

…Caviar bumps, “the Downtown Bemelmans,” tickling the ivories, the bicoastal lifestyle, spilling wine on art dealers, tie-dye formal…

November: Hauser & Wirth and MOCA celebrate Henry Taylor at Carbone in Miami  

…Overhearing that performance artist Joan Jonas is at Carbone but then finding out it’s actually a Jonas Brother, spicy rigatoni vodka for 1,000, Swiss billionaires eating chunks of Parmesan cheese,   Venus Williams introducing  Reilly Opelka to Henry Taylor, $100 plates of veal Parmesan for free…

And that’s a wrap on True Colors in 2022! We’ll be back in the new year, refreshed and rejuvenated and ready once again to take whatever the Art World throws at us. In the meantime, feel free to drop me a line at [email protected].

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This hedge fund billionaire owns the most expensive home ever sold in America — here's how he spends his fortune

Ken Griffin might not be the wealthiest person in the world, but that hasn't stopped him from outspending his fellow billionaires on splashy real estate deals. His latest buy is reportedly in contract — fashion icon Calvin Klein's seven-acre oceanfront Hamptons estate, which could  be worth up to $100 million.

The 51-year-old billionaire is the founder and CEO of Citadel — a hedge fund that manages nearly $30 billion worth of assets — and he has a net worth of roughly $12 billion, according to research firm Wealth-X. 

That amount puts Griffin well behind people like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates — the world's two richest people, respectively, with estimated net worths well over $100 billion apiece.

But Griffin still outranks those titans of wealth in at least one category: He owns the most expensive home ever sold in the U.S., a penthouse overlooking Central Park in New York City that Griffin bought in 2019 for $238 million .

That record-setting purchase topped the previous record for a home sold in the U.S., which had been the $147 million paid by fellow hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein in 2014 for an 18-acre estate in East Hampton, New York. Griffin's luxurious penthouse also outpaces the recent splashy real estate deal from the world's richest person, Bezos, who reportedly paid $165 million for a Los Angeles mansion in February.

Ken Griffin outranks world's richest person Jeff Bezos in at least one category: He owns the most expensive home ever sold in America

And that's far from Griffin's only major real estate purchase. In recent years, the billionaire has reportedly spent more than $750 million on real estate in Chicago, New York, Miami, Palm Beach, Florida and London, U.K. Griffin certainly has the funds to keep up his spending spree, as Bloomberg estimates that the hedge fund manager took home about $1.5 billion in income from his role at Citadel in 2019.

Wealth-X, a global high net worth intelligence and data company, gave CNBC Make It a breakdown of the value of Griffin's assets as of February 2020.

Here are some of the ways Griffin spends his money.

Real estate

It's no secret that Griffin has expensive taste when it comes to real estate. In fact, Griffin has a long track record of record-breaking home purchases.

His New York City penthouse (which first went into contract in 2015 ) includes an estimated 24,000 square feet and covers four full floors of the 79-story tower at 220 Central Park South. What's more, Griffin reportedly bought the penthouse unfinished, which meant he'd likely spend even more money to design the home to his tastes. And, he reportedly coughed up another nearly $4 million for two smaller units in the same building in October. 

The same week that Griffin's New York penthouse deal was finalized in January 2019, CNBC also reported that he was paying $122 million for a 16,000-square-foot mansion located near Buckingham Palace in the heart of London. The home , which is the most expensive home sold in London since 2008, is a 19th Century townhouse that previously housed French statesman Charles de Gaulle during World War II. The mansion features an indoor swimming pool and spa, staff quarters and private gardens.

Griffin is also a record-holder in his hometown of Chicago, where the billionaire paid $58.5 million for the top four floors of a condo building in 2018 (the largest home sale ever in that city). 

Griffin also bought the most expensive property ever sold in Miami in 2015 — a pair of penthouses that cost $60 million combined — and he's spent well over $200 million buying up more than 20 acres of oceanfront property in Florida's Palm Beach (also a state record) where he's building the largest estate in an area that also includes President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

Additionally, Griffin has bought multimillion-dollar homes in Aspen, Colorado and Hawaii in recent years.

Private jets

According to Wealth-X, Griffin's assets also include two private jets. Griffin owns a 2001 Bombardier Global Express private jet that's worth $9.5 million, as well as a $50 million 2012 Bombardier Global 6000 model jet, Wealth-X tells CNBC Make It. 

Art collection

Aside from splashy real estate purchases, Griffin has also made headlines for shelling out millions of dollars to curate his personal collection of classic artwork. In 2015, Griffin reportedly paid $300 million to Hollywood producer David Geffen for Willem de Kooning's 1955 painting "Interchange," while paying another $200 million in a separate deal to acquire Jackson Pollock's 1948 work "Number 17A."

Griffin's extensive art collection also includes a $60 million Paul Cezanne painting ("Curtain, Jug and Fruit Bowl") and an $80 million painting by Jasper Johns ("False Start").

Philanthropy

Griffin is also known for his philanthropy, some of which is focused on supporting the arts. He donated $40 million to New York City's Museum of Modern Art in 2015. In Chicago, Griffin has donated $10 million to that city's Museum of Contemporary Art and another $125 million to the Museum of Science and Industry.

He's also made large donations to academic institutions, including a then-record $150 million gift to the financial aid program at his alma mater, Harvard, in 2014. And, in 2017, Griffin gave $125 million to the University Chicago's economics department (which in turn, is now named for him).

(Meanwhile, Griffin's hedge fund recently pitched in to help contain the coronavirus, aka COVID-19 . In early February, Citadel sent $7.5 million to organizations in China working to help victims and contain the deadly virus, including Hubei Xinhua Hospital in the Chinese city of Wuhan as well as the Hubei Charity Federation and China Charity Federation.)

All the rest

Wealth-X estimates that Griffin's net worth includes about $460 million from his ownership stake in Citadel, the hedge fund he founded in 1990, just a year after he graduated from Harvard with a degree in economics. That number accounts for about 3.8% of Griffin's overall net worth, according to Wealth-X.

However, by far the largest piece of Griffin's fortune is the $11.2 billion that falls under the category of "cash and others," according to Wealth-X. That amount accounts for 93.3% of Griffin's wealth. It includes the money Griffin has earned from past salaries and bonuses as the CEO of Citadel, as well as his own personal investments through Citadel, which as of the end of December held large stakes in companies such Apple, General Electric and Snapchat, according to regulatory filings .

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Citadel's relocation to Miami was a success. But can Ken Griffin get the rest of Wall Street to do it?

• This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.
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Happy Friday! Dollar Tree is looking a lot more like Dollar Forest as the budget chain is raising its price ceiling again , this time to $7.

In today's big story, we're looking at how two of the most powerful Wall Street firms are doing two years after relocating to Miami .

What's on deck:

Markets: Memecoins are back on the rise .

Tech: Google employees feel their annual pay bump is coming up short .

Business: People have quit quitting, and that's good for the economy and businesses .

But first, we're staying in Miami.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

The big story

Florida migration.

Ken Griffin is used to making big bets as the founder of two of the most powerful firms on Wall Street, but one of his most ambitious wagers took place outside the markets.

Nearly two years ago the billionaire uprooted his hedge fund, Citadel, and market maker, Citadel Securities, from their Chicago headquarters to Miami.

South Florida always held a financial presence, and more so during the pandemic , but it's far from a major hub like New York or London. A key industry fueling Miami's glow-up — crypto — was also imploding at the time of Griffin's announcement in June 2022.

But nearly two years later, Griffin's empire is thriving in the Sunshine State, and there are plans to build a $1 billion headquarters tower. Employees at Citadel and Citadel Securities spoke to Business Insider's Emmalyse Brownstein about life in the new HQ .

Beyond the obvious benefits the city has — like the weather — employees spoke to Emmalyse about the improvements they've seen to their lifestyles and adjusting to the city.

Griffin's ambitions go beyond his firm's expansion in Miami.

The Florida native predicted Miami could eventually eclipse New York as the country's financial hub .

That's no easy task, even for someone with Griffin's considerable wealth and influence.

A similar switch was suggested for the startup community, which has long viewed the Bay Area as ground zero for young, innovative companies. Plenty deemed San Francisco dead a few years ago.

But the region has resurrected itself and its critics are returning as companies focused on the hottest tech — generative AI — have flocked to the area .

Meanwhile, cities like Austin that were viewed as a landing spot for startups exiting the Bay Area have failed to fully pan out .

Miami hasn't materialized into the tech hub it was once pitched as becoming , either. And not all of Florida's pandemic transplants have been happy , with some saying the overcrowding and expenses led them to regret their move .

But Griffin is committed to the region. He's donated tens of millions of dollars to local universities and plans to eventually build the most expensive home on Earth there, according to the New York Post .

And when the world's most successful hedge fund plants its flag squarely in a city, people tend to notice.

3 things in markets

Tokens like "dogwifhat" and "Baby Doge Coin" are surging. So-called memecoins are climbing off the back of bitcoin hitting record highs. Dogecoin was among the tokens spiking, with Elon Musk saying it could eventually be used to buy Teslas .

Stocks' kryptonite? Bond yields. Concentration risk in the market shouldn't spook investors as much as a potential surge in bond yields , according to Ned Davis Research. Another spike in government bond yields like the market saw last October could be challenging for all stocks.

Fisker's stock plummeted after a report said the EV maker is considering bankruptcy. Shares tumbled 55% after The Wall Street Journal reported that Fisker had hired restructuring advisors to assist with a possible bankruptcy filing. Its losses dragged down other EV stocks including Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid .

3 things in tech

Elon Musk is winning the nastiest battle in tech. PR experts told BI that the outspoken mega-entrepreneur has the upper hand against OpenAI founder Sam Altman in the court of public opinion right now. Going up against the Tesla CEO in a feud is like " stepping into the ring with the Muhammad Ali of the tech world ," one crisis PR exec said.

Google employees learned they're getting smaller pay bumps this year . Once a year, following performance reviews, employees learn how their packages should increase over the next year. This month, some employees actually saw a reduction in their overall pay .

Everyone wants to buy TikTok. Even though its US operations aren't for sale (its CEO is still urging users to fight against a ban), people are still talking about buying it — including former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. At one point, Elon Musk would have seemed like the perfect owner , BI's Peter Kafka writes.

3 things in business

The Big Stay is a big win. But it may be short-lived. The phenomenon, in which fewer employees are quitting their jobs compared to two years ago, has positive implications for the economy. Still, its benefits may be fleeting, as employees could just be biding their time .

Experts expect these 13 private equity firms will invest in advertising and marketing companies. After a tepid year for mergers and acquisitions in 2023, deals are starting to pick up. BI identified the most active PE firms in the space , from Blackstone to KKR.

BeReal faces an uncertain future. Growth has stalled at the French social media app , three people familiar with the company's operations told BI. Leaders of BeReal are mulling an uncertain Series C funding round or acquisition, they said.

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China says moves to ban TikTok will 'eventually backfire on US.'

Merely winning has never been enough for Putin — and this year's presidential election is no different .

I toured an experimental Boeing 777X aircraft, which the planemaker is using to certify the new $442 million widebody. See inside .

LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman and Microsoft's AI chief are backing Abigail Spanberger's 2025 Virginia governor run .

SpaceX finally flew the rocket of Elon Musk's wildest dreams to space without blowing it up .

Former EY partner shares how he climbed the corporate ladder to walk away from it all and become a math teacher .

Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan keep their marriage strong with a '2-week' rule .

February was a banner month for some of the industry's biggest trend-following funds .

What's happening today

Today's earnings: Groupon, Mercedes-Benz, and other companies are reporting .

The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco , deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Hallam Bullock , editor, in London. Jordan Parker Erb , editor, in New York. George Glover , reporter, in London.

Watch: How Twitter panic took down Silicon Valley Bank

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Kenneth C. Griffin

Founder, ceo and co-chief investment officer.

Kenneth C. Griffin is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Citadel, one of the world’s leading alternative investment firms. Ken is also the Founder and Non-Executive Chairman of Citadel Securities, one of the world’s preeminent market makers. A passionate philanthropist, Ken has donated more than $2 billion to advance education, opportunity, and health sciences initiatives that significantly transform people’s lives.

Intrigued by finance from a young age, Ken began investing in 1986 from his Harvard dorm room. The following year, he launched a small hedge fund that utilized emerging quantitative analytics to inform investment decision-making. In 1990, a year after graduating, he founded Citadel.

Ken founded Citadel on the belief that extraordinary individuals, equipped with advanced quantitative analytics and powerful software, could unlock opportunities in the world’s capital markets. A commitment to continuous learning, problem-solving, and meritocracy defines the firm’s culture. Citadel is routinely ranked among the best places to work, and the firm’s focus on advancing the careers of its team members is renowned on Wall Street.

Today, Citadel’s team of more than 2,500 professionals manages nearly $60 billion in investment capital. Citadel is recognized as one of the world’s most profitable hedge funds. The Citadel team has delivered extraordinary results for pension plans, university endowments, hospital systems, foundations, and research institutions that deliver meaningful impact for society, from curing cancer with immunotherapy to making scientific breakthroughs in particle physics.

In 2002, Ken and his partners established Citadel Securities as a market maker in the United States capital markets. Today, Citadel Securities is one of the world’s largest liquidity providers, serving more than 1,400 institutional clients, including many of the world’s largest central banks and sovereign wealth funds. Citadel Securities is recognized as a market leader in empowering clients to reach their investment goals and has proved transformative in enhancing competition in capital markets worldwide.

Ken’s decades of philanthropic involvement reflect the same strategic mindset that has contributed to his business success. Now advanced through Griffin Catalyst , Ken’s contributions have expanded access to education at all levels for millions of Americans, transformed research and medical institutions with historic gifts, and strengthened our cultural institutions. Ken’s insights were instrumental in the launch of Operation Warp Speed’s accelerated COVID-19 vaccine development and deployment strategies.

Ken holds an A.B. ’89 with Honors in Economics from Harvard College.

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Founder, ceo and co-chief investment officer.

Kenneth C. Griffin is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Citadel, one of the world’s leading alternative investment firms. Intrigued by finance, Ken began investing in 1986 as a freshman at Harvard. Four years later, he founded Citadel, driven by a focus on the combination of exceptional talent, advanced predictive analytics, and powerful software engineering. Today, the Citadel team of over 2,500 professionals is globally recognized as a market leader, investing on behalf of the world’s preeminent research institutions, universities, and healthcare organizations, with the mission of delivering superior long-term returns.

In 2002, Ken and his partners established Citadel Securities, now one of the leading global market makers. Serving more than 1,600 clients, including many of the largest sovereign wealth funds and central banks, Citadel Securities has delivered enormous benefits to investors around the world. Over the past two decades, through its trading, research, and technology, Citadel Securities has created more transparent, resilient, and competitive markets both in the U.S. and abroad. Ken is Non-Executive Chairman of Citadel Securities.

A passionate philanthropist, Ken is committed to strengthening humanity’s future by supporting initiatives that advance breakthroughs in science and medicine, and expand access and opportunity in education. His catalytic giving empowers students across our country to succeed and enables people to live longer and healthier lives.

Most recently, during the COVID-19 crisis, Ken took immediate action and mobilized partners across government, business, and healthcare to fund critical research. He played a key role in helping to safely return hundreds of Americans from Wuhan, China. Additionally, Ken’s thought leadership was instrumental in architecting Operation Warp Speed’s accelerated vaccine development strategies, which ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

As the pandemic engulfed America and schools were closing their doors, Ken enabled students to continue their learning by playing a leadership role in providing free high-speed broadband access to 400,000 low-income homes across Chicago and Miami. Championing his belief that a high-quality education is the on-ramp to the American Dream, Ken has funded transformative undergraduate scholarships to equip thousands of low-income and first-generation students with the skills and tools needed to succeed.

Ken holds an A.B. in Economics from Harvard College.

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Rich Guy Yachts Just Keep Getting Longer

“if the rest of the world learns what it’s like to live on a yacht like this, they’re gonna bring back the guillotine,” american yachtsman bill duker said..

In case you need an even stronger indication that normal people are being taken for a ride in late-stage capitalism: historic inflation is being accompanied by a worldwide boom in the number of billionaires. All these new members of the ultra wealthy are buying super, mega and “giga” yachts to set them apart from land-based poors.

There are so many deeply incredible and infuriating pieces of information from this New Yorker story about the world of private yachts that I’m going to encourage you to spend time reading the whole in-depth piece. Here’s a few bits that caught my eye, like describing a different kind of embarrassment of riches: having too small a yacht.

A big ship is a floating manse, with a hierarchy written right into the nomenclature. If it has a crew working aboard, it’s a yacht. If it’s more than ninety-eight feet, it’s a superyacht. After that, definitions are debated, but people generally agree that anything more than two hundred and thirty feet is a megayacht, and more than two hundred and ninety-five is a gigayacht. The world contains about fifty-four hundred superyachts, and about a hundred gigayachts. For the moment, a gigayacht is the most expensive item that our species has figured out how to own. In 2019, the hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin bought a quadruplex on Central Park South for two hundred and forty million dollars, the highest price ever paid for a home in America. In May, an unknown buyer spent about a hundred and ninety-five million on an Andy Warhol silk-screen portrait of Marilyn Monroe. In luxury-yacht terms, those are ordinary numbers. “There are a lot of boats in build well over two hundred and fifty million dollars,” Jamie Edmiston, a broker in Monaco and London, told me. His buyers are getting younger and more inclined to spend long stretches at sea. “High-speed Internet, telephony, modern communications have made working easier,” he said. “Plus, people made a lot more money earlier in life.” A Silicon Valley C.E.O. told me that one appeal of boats is that they can “absorb the most excess capital.” He explained, “Rationally, it would seem to make sense for people to spend half a billion dollars on their house and then fifty million on the boat that they’re on for two weeks a year, right? But it’s gone the other way. People don’t want to live in a hundred-thousand-square-foot house. Optically, it’s weird. But a half-billion-dollar boat, actually, is quite nice.” Staluppi, of Palm Beach Gardens, is content to spend three or four times as much on his yachts as on his homes. Part of the appeal is flexibility. “If you’re on your boat and you don’t like your neighbor, you tell the captain, ‘Let’s go to a different place,’ ” he said. On land, escaping a bad neighbor requires more work: “You got to try and buy him out or make it uncomfortable or something.” The preference for sea-based investment has altered the proportions of taste. Until recently, the Silicon Valley C.E.O. said, “a fifty-metre boat was considered a good-sized boat. Now that would be a little bit embarrassing.” In the past twenty years, the length of the average luxury yacht has grown by a third, to a hundred and sixty feet.

Or this portion, describing the amount of both pollution and wealthy self-awareness generated by these giants:

Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the yachting community was straining to manage its reputation as a gusher of carbon emissions (one well-stocked diesel yacht is estimated to produce as much greenhouse gas as fifteen hundred passenger cars), not to mention the fact that the world of white boats is overwhelmingly white. In a candid aside to a French documentarian, the American yachtsman Bill Duker said, “If the rest of the world learns what it’s like to live on a yacht like this, they’re gonna bring back the guillotine.”

But what these big-ass boats really represent to their ultra-wealthy owners is the largest waste of money possible, or as Silicone Valley CEO put it, ““absorb the most excess capital.”

The latest fashions include imax theatres, hospital equipment that tests for dozens of pathogens, and ski rooms where guests can suit up for a helicopter trip to a mountaintop. The longtime owner, who had returned the previous day from his yacht, told me, “No one today—except for assholes and ridiculous people—lives on land in what you would call a deep and broad luxe life. Yes, people have nice houses and all of that, but it’s unlikely that the ratio of staff to them is what it is on a boat.” After a moment, he added, “Boats are the last place that I think you can get away with it.” Even among the truly rich, there is a gap between the haves and the have-yachts. One boating guest told me about a conversation with a famous friend who keeps one of the world’s largest yachts. “He said, ‘The boat is the last vestige of what real wealth can do.’ What he meant is, You have a chef, and I have a chef. You have a driver, and I have a driver. You can fly privately, and I fly privately. So, the one place where I can make clear to the world that I am in a different fucking category than you is the boat.”

Check out the whole story to see how the other side lives. It might motivate you to sharpen up the old guillotine blades while you’re at it.

Baptist Health Foundation announces historic $50 million donation from Citadel’s CEO, Kenneth C. Griffin

MIAMI (WSVN) - The Baptist Health Foundation is celebrating a historic donation to help with expansion plans for their neuroscience unit.

Billionaire hedge-fund manager and the CEO of Citadel, Kenneth C. Griffin, has donated the facility $50 million to fund the expansion.

It’s the largest donation in the history of the facility and it comes at a time of the rise of Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases and the need for clinical care is at an all-time high.

“The Miami Neuroscience Institute intends to continue to grow and be a key player in our region to be able to provide the best possible care to our patients with neurological diseases,” said Dr. Diego Torres-Russotto.

“The key to making this donation mean something is having people like Dr. Torres, like Dr. McDermott leading the way because it will impact the community here, but it’s gonna impact treatment worldwide,” said Sebastian Kris, a Baptist Health patient.

The Baptist donation is one of several healthcare-related gifts from Griffin. The Griffin Catalyst, which is Griffin’s Civic Engagement Initiative, also gave $50 million to the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center earlier this month.

Copyright 2024 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Baptist Health Foundation Announces Historic $50 Million Gift from Kenneth C. Griffin

Miami, FL, March 19, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Baptist Health Foundation today announced the largest single donation in the nearly 65-year history of Baptist Health South Florida. The $50 million gift from Kenneth C. Griffin, founder and CEO of Miami-based hedge fund Citadel and founder of Griffin Catalyst, will advance neurological care in the region. The gift comes at a critical time, with the incidence of Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases on the rise and the need for clinical care at an all-time high.

Mr. Griffin’s donation will fund the expansion of Baptist Health Miami Neuroscience Institute, including the construction of a new, state-of-the-art center that will house the Institute and comprehensive care for patients on the campus of Baptist Hospital in Miami. The new Kenneth C. Griffin Center at Miami Neuroscience Institute will also help advance research related to neuroscience and neurodegenerative disorders.

Along with cutting-edge laboratories equipped with the latest technologies, the new building will provide ample space for Baptist Health researchers to conduct studies in the same facility where they see patients, expanding the Institute’s growing research program. With researchers and clinicians co-located, physician collaboration and innovation will reach new heights, leading to critical advancements in neuroscience and its sub-disciplines.

“This extraordinary gift is a visionary contribution to the well-being of current and future generations in South Florida and beyond,” said Bo Boulenger, president and CEO of Baptist Health. “We are enormously grateful to Mr. Griffin for this generous donation, which will further strengthen our position as one of the nation’s leading centers for neuroscience.”

As a top-ranked neurology and neurosurgery center with a multidisciplinary and sub-specialized group of physicians providing compassionate and expert patient care, Miami Neuroscience Institute addresses complex neurological issues such as dementia, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and movement disorders including Parkinson's disease. The new, visionary facility will address the critical need for expanded space, innovative technology and collaborative research.

“Mr. Griffin’s support will propel Baptist Health into a new era of clinical and research excellence, enabling us to push the boundaries of neuroscience research and deliver cutting-edge treatments,” said Michael W. McDermott, M.D., chief medical executive of Miami Neuroscience Institute. “This support is instrumental in advancing neuroscience research, and I hope it will inspire others to join us on this journey. Mr. Griffin’s gift positions our clinicians to redefine the landscape of neurological care in ways that will advance the field and, most importantly, drive impact for our patients.”

“The advancements in neurological treatment driven by the team at Baptist Health will have a profound impact on patients and their loved ones,” said Mr. Griffin. “Baptist Health’s incredible team of dedicated doctors and researchers at Miami Neuroscience Institute bring hope and healing to individuals and families, both in our community and from around the world. I am proud to support Baptist’s work that is elevating Miami as a destination for world-class medical care.”

One of the country’s leading philanthropists, Mr. Griffin has long been committed to pushing the frontiers of science and medicine to drive progress and improve lives. His efforts have included major contributions to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation, among others. His donation to the Baptist Health Foundation is one of Mr. Griffin’s largest philanthropic gifts in Florida to date and among the ten largest healthcare-related philanthropic gifts in Florida in the last decade.

Alex Villoch, chief executive officer of Baptist Health Foundation added, “Mr. Griffin’s extraordinary philanthropic commitment marks a pivotal moment in our mission to advance brain science. Together, we are forging a legacy of innovation and compassion that will improve outcomes and change lives.”

### About Baptist Health Foundation

The mission of Baptist Health Foundation is to inspire philanthropy and build extraordinary donor relationships in support of excellence, innovation, community wellness and global leadership in healthcare at Baptist Health South Florida. Through philanthropy, the Foundation supports and expands Baptist Health’s ability to provide outstanding patient care and bring the latest treatments to patients and families affected by a serious illness. Donor contributions also allow the Foundation to assist Baptist Health facilities in keeping pace with technology and equipment advances, perform cutting-edge research and offer continuing education opportunities to medical staff. Learn more at BaptistHealth.net/Foundation and connect with us on Facebook and Instagram.

About Baptist Health South Florida Baptist Health South Florida is the largest healthcare organization in the region, with 12 hospitals, more than 27,000 employees, 4,000 physicians and 200 outpatient centers, urgent care facilities and physician practices spanning across Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Baptist Health South Florida has internationally renowned institutes specializing in cancer care, brain and spine care, heart and vascular care and orthopedic care. In addition, it includes Baptist Health Medical Group; Baptist Health Quality Network; and The Baptist Health PineApp, a virtual health platform. Baptist Health South Florida is an academic and clinical affiliate of Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. A not-for-profit organization supported by philanthropy and committed to its faith-based charitable mission of medical excellence, Baptist Health South Florida has been recognized by Fortune as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America and is the most awarded healthcare system in South Florida by U.S. News and World Report. For more information, visit BaptistHealth.net/Newsroom and connect with us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

About Griffin Catalyst

Griffin Catalyst is the civic engagement initiative of Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin, encompassing his philanthropic and community impact efforts. Tackling the world’s greatest challenges in innovative, action-oriented, and evidence-driven ways, Griffin Catalyst is dedicated to expanding opportunity and improving lives across six areas of focus: Education, Science & Medicine, Upward Mobility, Freedom & Democracy, Enterprise & Innovation, and Communities. For more information, visit griffincatalyst.org, and connect with us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

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A Shadowy but Powerful Wall St. Firm Has Its Moment in Washington

Citadel and its sister business, Citadel Securities, were all over the GameStop debacle. Its founder will face sharp questions on Thursday.

By Matt Phillips and Kate Kelly

The GameStop saga was a David-versus-Goliath story pitting small traders against big hedge funds and a cautionary tale about what happens when fast-moving Silicon Valley collides with the heavily regulated world of Wall Street.

Among its ensemble cast is one of the finance world’s most influential — and perhaps least visible — figures, the Chicago billionaire Kenneth C. Griffin.

And when the House Financial Services Committee meets on Thursday to question key players in the GameStop madness, Mr. Griffin will be asked about the two distinct roles his companies played in a two-week trading frenzy that created and destroyed billions of dollars in wealth.

The first business, Citadel, is a hedge fund firm that had placed a small bet that GameStop shares would fall. It suffered when the shares rose because millions of small investors began buying up the stock, but not nearly as badly as another hedge fund, Melvin Capital, which took a $2 billion investment from Citadel and some of its employees to shore up its finances.

The second business, Citadel Securities, is a wholesale broker that says it handles more than a quarter of all stock trading in the United States. It pays Robinhood and other retail brokerages for the right to fulfill their customers’ trades, and makes money by pocketing tiny price discrepancies between buy and sell orders, which can quickly add up. And as small investors were furiously buying and selling GameStop shares — many through trading apps such as Robinhood — Citadel Securities was doing brisk business.

“Citadel is one of the many really gigantic financial firms that are incredibly important and interwoven throughout the financial system but are never visible to the public,” said Dennis M. Kelleher, president and chief executive officer of Better Markets, a nonprofit group that supports additional financial regulation. “They operate in the shadows and want to stay in the shadows and don’t want anyone looking at how they conduct their business.”

On Thursday, lawmakers will put a spotlight on Mr. Griffin. He is scheduled — along with the chief executives of Robinhood and Reddit, the social media site — to testify before the House committee about the GameStop rally. Also on the witness list is Keith Gill, a Reddit user and YouTube poster who made millions off the GameStop trade he helped popularize, and Gabe Plotkin, the founder and chief executive of Melvin, who was so badly squeezed he accepted Citadel’s help.

In particular, Mr. Griffin will have to address speculation that he used his firms’ involvement to manipulate the situation for his own benefit. Small investors who were irritated that Robinhood put curbs on GameStop trading have suggested that Citadel was behind the limits, applying pressure to Robinhood to protect its own bet against the video game retailer — assertions that both Citadel and Robinhood have denied.

“There’s a giant pachyderm running around, and that’s the insane theory that we induced Robinhood or any other firm to impose trading restrictions on GameStop,” Mr. Griffin said in an interview on Wednesday. “Never in my life have I seen such a completely absurd theory.”

Representative Maxine Waters, the California Democrat who leads the committee, said the hearing — the first of three she has planned — would be a fact-finding mission.

“They will tell their story,” she said of Citadel and the other witnesses. “We hope the hearing will give us some facts, and a very clear understanding of who did what.”

For Mr. Griffin, who began trading as a sophomore at Harvard, the answer to such questions will depend on precisely which arm of his financial empire officials are asking about.

Citadel — the hedge fund — had only limited holdings of GameStop and other “meme” stocks that surged last month. As of Jan. 22, the Friday before GameStop went through the roof, Citadel’s bet against GameStop was limited to just 92 shares, said a person familiar with the firm’s position at the time. But after GameStop started soaring, Mr. Griffin — one of the financial world’s savviest operators — spotted an opening at the beleaguered Melvin.

One of Mr. Griffin’s lieutenants called Mr. Plotkin to express an interest in investing, Mr. Griffin said. By day’s end, Citadel and Melvin had a handshake deal. Citadel and some of its senior managers would buy a stake of less than 10 percent in Melvin for $2 billion in cash, said a person familiar with the details of the transaction, who was not authorized to disclose confidential details of it. That money, along with $750 million from the hedge fund Point72, allowed Melvin to weather heavy losses as GameStop — a stock it had bet would fall — soared more than 600 percent.

Melvin’s losses were stunning: 53 percent in January. Citadel, which by then had a small exposure to Melvin’s losses and a loss on its own GameStop investment, was down 3 percent. (The S&P 500 was down 1.1 percent for the month.)

But the opportunity that GameStop’s rise presented to Mr. Griffin’s hedge fund is entwined with the other role his companies played, in particular Citadel Securities. And it is here that aggrieved investors have smelled a conspiracy.

On the morning of Jan. 28, Robinhood, the Silicon Valley start-up that had become a go-to destination for small investors, curbed the buying of GameStop and a few other stocks. The reasons were not fully explained, and they had the immediate effect of reversing the rally.

Users were furious — first with Robinhood, and then with Citadel.

Some amateur traders, knowing that Citadel had already invested in Melvin and that Citadel Securities ran a huge trading operation of which Robinhood was a customer, jumped to conspiracy theories online. (The arrangement, known as “payment for order flow,” allows users on Robinhood and other apps to trade for free.)

“Had no idea that Citadel had it’s hands in so many pockets!!” a commenter wrote on Reddit’s Wall Street Bets forum on Jan. 31. “Keep in mind they own a portion of Melvin capital! They’ve tried to rig the market against us.”

Mr. Griffin said he and his team were paying little attention to the online chatter because they were occupied with the enormous flood of trades. On Jan. 28, for example, Citadel Securities handled trades totaling 7.4 billion shares — roughly the same as the entire stock market volume on a given day in 2019.

But once Mr. Griffin realized the reputational risk of the rumor mill, he put out statements from both firms to deny any role in Robinhood’s decision to limit trading.

Citadel Securities had no commercial reason to want to slow or stop the trading, Mr. Griffin and other company officials said, because of its business model. The company collects the tiny gap between a buy and sell price on an individual stock order as a fee, and slower trading limited Citadel Securities’s ability to make money.

But the vitriol aimed at Citadel has not abated, even after Robinhood’s chief executive, Vlad Tenev, came forward with the reason for the slowdown: The heavy trading in a wildly swinging stock by Robinhood’s users meant it needed to make a hefty safety-net payment to the industry-run clearinghouse that finalizes trades.

Thursday’s hearing may yield more details about what transpired inside the companies so closely tied to the GameStop rally, but it is also likely to feature populist anger from both parties, directed at both Robinhood and the short sellers who targeted GameStop.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat and a member of the Financial Services Committee, called Robinhood’s decision to halt some trades for GameStop in January “unacceptable.” And Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat on the committee, called the decision “beyond absurd” and accused the app of “blocking the ability to trade to protect” hedge funds.

David McCabe contributed reporting.

An earlier version of this story misstated the limits that Robinhood put on trading of GameStop and other stocks on Jan. 28. The broker imposed limits on buying shares, not selling.

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Kate Kelly is a business reporter, covering big banks, trading, and key financial-policy players. She is also the co-author of “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh” and the author of "Street Fighters."  More about Kate Kelly

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Baptist Health Foundation Announces Historic $50 Million Gift from Kenneth C. Griffin

Miami, FL, March 19, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Baptist Health Foundation today announced the largest single donation in the nearly 65-year history of Baptist Health South Florida. The $50 million gift from Kenneth C. Griffin, founder and CEO of Miami-based hedge fund Citadel and founder of Griffin Catalyst, will advance neurological care in the region. The gift comes at a critical time, with the incidence of Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases on the rise and the need for clinical care at an all-time high.

Mr. Griffin’s donation will fund the expansion of Baptist Health Miami Neuroscience Institute, including the construction of a new, state-of-the-art center that will house the Institute and comprehensive care for patients on the campus of Baptist Hospital in Miami. The new Kenneth C. Griffin Center at Miami Neuroscience Institute will also help advance research related to neuroscience and neurodegenerative disorders.

Along with cutting-edge laboratories equipped with the latest technologies, the new building will provide ample space for Baptist Health researchers to conduct studies in the same facility where they see patients, expanding the Institute’s growing research program. With researchers and clinicians co-located, physician collaboration and innovation will reach new heights, leading to critical advancements in neuroscience and its sub-disciplines.

“This extraordinary gift is a visionary contribution to the well-being of current and future generations in South Florida and beyond,” said Bo Boulenger, president and CEO of Baptist Health. “We are enormously grateful to Mr. Griffin for this generous donation, which will further strengthen our position as one of the nation’s leading centers for neuroscience.”

As a top-ranked neurology and neurosurgery center with a multidisciplinary and sub-specialized group of physicians providing compassionate and expert patient care, Miami Neuroscience Institute addresses complex neurological issues such as dementia, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and movement disorders including Parkinson's disease. The new, visionary facility will address the critical need for expanded space, innovative technology and collaborative research.

“Mr. Griffin’s support will propel Baptist Health into a new era of clinical and research excellence, enabling us to push the boundaries of neuroscience research and deliver cutting-edge treatments,” said Michael W. McDermott, M.D., chief medical executive of Miami Neuroscience Institute. “This support is instrumental in advancing neuroscience research, and I hope it will inspire others to join us on this journey. Mr. Griffin’s gift positions our clinicians to redefine the landscape of neurological care in ways that will advance the field and, most importantly, drive impact for our patients.”

“The advancements in neurological treatment driven by the team at Baptist Health will have a profound impact on patients and their loved ones,” said Mr. Griffin. “Baptist Health’s incredible team of dedicated doctors and researchers at Miami Neuroscience Institute bring hope and healing to individuals and families, both in our community and from around the world. I am proud to support Baptist’s work that is elevating Miami as a destination for world-class medical care.”

One of the country’s leading philanthropists, Mr. Griffin has long been committed to pushing the frontiers of science and medicine to drive progress and improve lives. His efforts have included major contributions to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation, among others. His donation to the Baptist Health Foundation is one of Mr. Griffin’s largest philanthropic gifts in Florida to date and among the ten largest healthcare-related philanthropic gifts in Florida in the last decade.

Alex Villoch, chief executive officer of Baptist Health Foundation added, “Mr. Griffin’s extraordinary philanthropic commitment marks a pivotal moment in our mission to advance brain science. Together, we are forging a legacy of innovation and compassion that will improve outcomes and change lives.”

About Baptist Health Foundation

The mission of Baptist Health Foundation is to inspire philanthropy and build extraordinary donor relationships in support of excellence, innovation, community wellness and global leadership in healthcare at Baptist Health South Florida. Through philanthropy, the Foundation supports and expands Baptist Health’s ability to provide outstanding patient care and bring the latest treatments to patients and families affected by a serious illness. Donor contributions also allow the Foundation to assist Baptist Health facilities in keeping pace with technology and equipment advances, perform cutting-edge research and offer continuing education opportunities to medical staff. Learn more at BaptistHealth.net/Foundation and connect with us on Facebook and Instagram.

About Baptist Health South Florida

Baptist Health South Florida is the largest healthcare organization in the region, with 12 hospitals, more than 27,000 employees, 4,000 physicians and 200 outpatient centers, urgent care facilities and physician practices spanning across Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Baptist Health South Florida has internationally renowned institutes specializing in cancer care, brain and spine care, heart and vascular care and orthopedic care. In addition, it includes Baptist Health Medical Group; Baptist Health Quality Network; and The Baptist Health PineApp, a virtual health platform. Baptist Health South Florida is an academic and clinical affiliate of Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. A not-for-profit organization supported by philanthropy and committed to its faith-based charitable mission of medical excellence, Baptist Health South Florida has been recognized by Fortune as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America and is the most awarded healthcare system in South Florida by U.S. News and World Report. For more information, visit BaptistHealth.net/Newsroom and connect with us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

About Griffin Catalyst

Griffin Catalyst is the civic engagement initiative of Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin, encompassing his philanthropic and community impact efforts. Tackling the world’s greatest challenges in innovative, action-oriented, and evidence-driven ways, Griffin Catalyst is dedicated to expanding opportunity and improving lives across six areas of focus: Education, Science & Medicine, Upward Mobility, Freedom & Democracy, Enterprise & Innovation, and Communities. For more information, visit griffincatalyst.org, and connect with us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Gina Halley-Wright

Baptist Health South Florida

[email protected]

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Kenneth C. Griffin spent the day on campus, stopping at the Faculty Club to meet with Naomi Bashkansky ‘25, David Paquette ’23, and other students.

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Kenneth C. Griffin makes gift of $300 million to FAS

Graduate school of arts and sciences named in honor of alum’s four decades of philanthropy, support for expanding opportunity, advancing excellence.

Harvard University announced today that business leader and philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin ’89 has made a gift of $300 million to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) to support the School’s mission and to advance cutting-edge research and expand access and excellence in education for students and scholars regardless of economic circumstances. This unrestricted gift furthers Griffin’s philanthropic legacy at Harvard, which spans four decades and totals more than $500 million.

In recognition of Griffin’s commitment to Harvard’s mission over the years, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will be renamed the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in his honor.

Griffin’s most recent gift builds on his commitment to expanding opportunity and his legacy of transformational support for the FAS and across Harvard. His $150 million contribution to financial aid in 2014 remains the largest single gift to undergraduate financial aid and to Harvard College. That endowed gift currently supports 228 undergraduates — and has supported more than 600 to date. It also established the Griffin Leadership Challenge, which inspired alumni and other donors to establish 654 new scholarships during a four-year period and made it possible for the FAS to raise $600 million for undergraduate financial aid.

Griffin’s latest gift positions Harvard to continue to attract the best students and scholars from around the world.

“Ken’s exceptional generosity and steadfast devotion enable excellence and opportunity at Harvard,” said Harvard President Larry Bacow. “His choice to support FAS underscores the power of education to transform lives and to expand the reach of our research in every field imaginable. It has been a great pleasure to get to know Ken throughout my presidency, and I am deeply and personally appreciative of the confidence he has placed in us — and in our mission — to do good in the world.”

Griffin’s gift to the FAS provides essential resources to support every aspect of the School’s mission, particularly long-term excellence in teaching and research within and across its many fields and disciplines. The FAS is home to Harvard’s undergraduate program as well as all of Harvard’s Ph.D. programs. The 40 academic departments and 30-plus centers of the FAS support a community unparalleled in its academic excellence across the broadest range of liberal arts and sciences disciplines, powering truth-seeking and problem-solving at Harvard and well beyond.

The gift also underscores the power of graduate education, with graduate students and faculty creating new knowledge that enhances understanding across every area of study. Those students become the next generation of scholars, with some advancing knowledge and innovation as academic leaders at universities throughout the world and others applying their research to create new therapies, technologies, and tools to advance human health or help drive the economy.

Griffin’s gift enables such pathways and provides a firm foundation for the FAS to pursue student success and cultivate deep expertise and new collaborations across disciplines and departments.

“Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences is committed to advancing ideas that will shape humanity’s future, while providing important insight into our past,” said Griffin. “I am excited to support the impactful work of this great institution.”

“I have witnessed firsthand the impact of Ken’s philanthropy in my time as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences,” said Claudine Gay, Edgerley Family Dean of the FAS. “His extraordinary investment in our institution and, notably, his understanding of the power of unrestricted funds have been essential to our School’s ability to confidently advance academic excellence in service to the world, while navigating headwinds from the pandemic to shifts in the economy.”

Griffin’s gift to the FAS comes at a moment of opportunity as the School undertakes a broad strategic planning process focused on delivering a forward-looking vision for excellence in graduate education, faculty support and development, and organization of academic communities. As part of that broader work in the FAS, the Graduate School convened a faculty-led working group focused on admissions and education, designed to ensure that students graduate with the potential to serve as intellectual leaders for the 21st century.

“I am deeply and personally appreciative of the confidence he has placed in us — and in our mission — to do good in the world.” Larry Bacow, Harvard president

As the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences takes on its new name, it is also marking its 150th anniversary. Situated within the FAS,  Harvard Griffin GSAS offers Ph.D. and select master’s degrees in over 57 departments and programs. Through degree and non-degree study and visiting and outreach programs, the School connects students with all parts of the University.

“As we celebrate our sesquicentennial this year, we are looking ahead to our next 150 years and imagining what our current students will achieve,” said Emma Dench, Dean of the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History and of the Classics. “This investment in the Faculty of the Arts and Sciences cannot help but support our students as they engage in the inquiry and innovation that will ultimately lead to positive impact on the world.”

Noting the celebration of the School’s milestone, Bacow reflected on how important graduate education and research are to Harvard’s mission. Graduate research helped create vaccines to curb the spread of COVID-19, a development made possible by basic research done decades ago that helped scientists understand how mRNA could be used to code proteins that incite a protective immune response, thereby controlling viral infections. Research in philosophy and ethics is now helping guide how colleges and universities educate those who are making advances in artificial intelligence. And research in data science is helping scholars and policymakers understand sources of economic opportunity and social mobility.

Griffin’s most recent gift builds on his previous support for faculty and students, including the $150 million gift in 2014 to expand undergraduate financial aid.

Last month, Harvard announced another expansion of the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative (HFAI) for low- and middle-income families. Beginning with the class of 2027, the cost to attend Harvard College, which includes tuition, room, board, and all fees, will be free for families with annual incomes below $85,000. This is an increase from the $75,000 annual income threshold announced last year. Today more than half of undergraduate families receive need-based scholarships and one in four families pay nothing toward the cost of a Harvard education.

Griffin, who concentrated in economics and began investing from his dorm room in Cabot House as a sophomore, has also made gifts to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Business School. He has supported important University priorities such as stem cell research and, recently, a professorship in economics in honor of Professor Martin Feldstein. In 1999, he established the Wayne R. Gratz Scholarship in honor of his grandfather.

Griffin is the founder and chief executive officer of Citadel, one of the world’s leading alternative investment firms. He is also the founder and non-executive chairman of Citadel Securities, one of the largest market makers in the world. His innovative philanthropic initiatives have made him a leader in advancing breakthroughs in science and medicine, enabling longer and healthier lives, as well as in expanding access and opportunity in education, equipping the next generation of leaders with the tools needed to succeed. Griffin’s leadership during the COVID-19 crisis helped mobilize partners across government, business, and healthcare to fund critical research and safely rescue hundreds of Americans from Wuhan, China. He also provided crucial thought leadership that laid the foundation for Operation Warp Speed – a U.S. program designed to accelerate the creation and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.

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Businessman and philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin celebrated for his landmark $50 million gift to Sylvester

By Robert C. Jones Jr. [email protected] 03-06-2024

Kenneth C. Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel and founder of Griffin Catalyst, is filled with a hope shared by millions the world over: that one day soon, the scourge of cancer will be eradicated. It is an illness, he said, “that can be so tragic, so painful, and so devastating. But it represents our shared belief that we will bring this disease to its rightful end.” 

Griffin’s hope for cancer’s end was amplified Tuesday when dozens of invited guests gathered in the heart of the University of Miami Medical Campus quadrangle to recognize Griffin for his $50 million gift to Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer center in South Florida and part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and UHealth—University of Miami Health System. 

Griffin’s landmark donation will help fund the 12-story, 244,000-square-foot Transformational Cancer Research Building, allowing Sylvester to double its research footprint, accelerate efforts to develop new therapies, enhance care for patients, and expand access to clinical trials. 

In recognition of the gift, which is part of the University’s $2.5 billion Ever Brighter fundraising campaign, the facility will be named in Griffin’s honor as the Kenneth C. Griffin Cancer Research Building. 

The gift, University of Miami President Julio Frenk said at the Gift of Light event, is not only a “shining moment” for the school and its cancer center, but also “for the hundreds of thousands in our community and elsewhere impacted by cancer.” 

“A vital catalyst for our growth and our focus on what is possible” is how Dr. Stephen D. Nimer, director of Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Oscar de la Renta Endowed Chair in cancer research, described Griffin’s gift. 

“What we have been building together is not just the building,” Nimer said. “It’s a symbol of our shared commitment to turning our vision into reality—a place where we can continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible, not only for the 6.2 million people who live in South Florida but for our nation and beyond. Together we are building a destination cancer center with world-renowned physicians and researchers committed to excellence and with skilled and dedicated staff who deliver compassionate lifesaving care.” 

Dr. Dipen J. Parekh, chief operating officer of UHealth and the founding director of the Desai Sethi Urology Institute, said Griffin’s “generosity will strengthen the foundation of the new [cancer research] building, but even more meaningful is how it will further strengthen the spirit and resolve of 20,000 warriors who answer their calling every day within our health system.” 

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava called it “transformational,” adding that it will “light the way for a healthier Miami-Dade County,” where more than 12,000 families are impacted by cancer each day. 

The ceremony, held on the Schoninger Research Quadrangle, took place on 305 Day, Miami’s day of self-celebration, and during the event, Cava declared Griffin “Mr. 305” in recognition of his many contributions to the city. 

Griffin, who grew up in Boca Raton, Florida, and moved to Miami-Dade County two years ago, is the founder and CEO of the multinational Miami-based hedge fund firm Citadel and founder of Griffin Catalyst, the civic engagement initiative that encompasses his philanthropic and community impact efforts. One of the country’s leading philanthropists, Griffin has long been committed to pushing the frontiers of science and medicine to drive progress and improve lives. 

University of Miami trustee Stuart Miller, who chairs the UHealth Board of Directors, praised Griffin for his philanthropic impact, noting that the entrepreneur has provided more than $2 billion to support efforts that expand opportunity and improve lives at scale. 

“Since moving his Citadel headquarters to Miami in 2022, Ken promptly made his mark on our city,” said Miller, whose own family made a $100 million gift to name the University’s medical school in 2004. “Among his first philanthropic endeavors was the extension of a groundbreaking effort he originally championed in Chicago to bridge the digital divide. Known here as Miami Connected, he partnered with Miami-Dade Public Schools’ Achieve Miami and other organizations to bring free broadband connectivity, digital literacy, and career opportunities and technology to more than 100,000 students across our community.”

Griffin called his decision to support the University’s health care system one of the easiest he’s made in recent history. “I find my own personal care here, as does my family,” Griffin said. “The doctors are remarkable. Their compassion is incredible. It is a remarkable institution. It’s one that we should all be proud of as people who live here in Miami.

“There is no doubt that Sylvester will continue to be at the forefront of science and care and at the forefront of saving people’s lives,” Griffin said. “With this team, we are leading the way to being one day closer to achieving our shared goal of ending the threat of cancer in our lifetime.” 

One of the 18 million cancer survivors in the U.S., Miami-Dade resident Iliana Suarez said she can’t wait to see what new research will develop because of Griffin’s gift. 

“I’m cancer free for six years now, and I owe it all to the dedication and caring attitudes of the doctors and nurses at Sylvester,” she said. “I’m sure Ken’s gift will only lead to better lives for many other people who are fighting the disease.”

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Who is Ken Griffin? 5 things to know about the hedge-fund billionaire who just gave Harvard $300 million.

Hedge-fund multibillionaire Ken Griffin, an alumnus of the undergraduate Harvard College, is hanging his name on the Ivy League institution’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences following a $300 million donation to the university.

Harvard says Griffin, 54, who received his bachelor’s degree in 1989, has now given more than a half-billion dollars to his alma mater. His $150 million donation in 2014, earmarked for financial aid, was reportedly the largest gift in the undergraduate college’s history.

It’s not the first Griffin gift to an elite educational institution to result in his name’s being emblazoned on a high-profile academic entity. He donated $125 million to the University of Chicago’s fabled economics department in 2017, which has since formally been called the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics.

Of his new Harvard donation, Griffin said this: “Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences is committed to advancing ideas that will shape humanity’s future, while providing important insight into our past.”

He added that he was “excited to support the impactful work of this great institution.”

Harvard’s endowment was valued at $50.9 billion at the end of the 2022 fiscal year last June .

As Citadel’s founder and chief executive officer, Griffin, has become one of the richest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of $34.9 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index .

Last year he made news by sinking tens of millions of dollars into a failed effort to elect a Republican governor in Illinois while also pulling Citadel’s headquarters out of Chicago . (He also made an appearance in 2022 in the inaugural MarketWatch 50 list.) Of late, he’s had plenty to say about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank , telling the Financial Times that uninsured depositors at the bank should not have been rescued.

Following are five more things to know about Griffin.

Citadel made $16 billion last year

According to a report published earlier this year by the fund-of-funds outfit LCH Investments, Citadel made $16 billion in profit , after fees, last year.

That would be the largest annual profit for a hedge fund in recorded history, outpacing the $15 billion profit racked up by John Paulson’s fund in 2007, driven by what has often labeled “the greatest trade ever,” against subprime mortgages, said Rick Sopher, chairman of LCH.

Citadel’s year was particularly impressive considering the overall drop in the market. Hedge-fund managers as a whole lost $208 billion in 2022, the LCH report indicates.

In addition, Citadel Securities, a market maker , raked in an additional $7.5 billion in revenue in 2022, according to Bloomberg .

Griffin is a megadonor to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Griffin, who is originally from Daytona Beach, Fla., is a fan of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Griffin donated $5 million to DeSantis’s re-election campaign — in a race DeSantis ultimately won by a large margin over Charlie Crist , former governor (and former Republican) — and said he would back DeSantis in a potential 2024 White House bid.

“I don’t know what he’s going to do. It’s a huge personal decision,” Griffin told Politico about the possibility of DeSantis’s running for president in 2024. “He has a tremendous record as governor of Florida, and our country would be well-served by him as president.”

In One Chart: As Biden says he’s ‘planning on running,’ here are the potential 2024 Republican candidates

Griffin has contributed to dozens of Republican candidates over the years. He has donated sums of between $250,000 and $5 million to political campaigns including Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign; Donald Trump’s and Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaigns; and the Senate campaigns of Maine’s Susan Collins, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Missouri’s Josh Hawley, according to tracking site Open Secrets .

Griffin donated a total of $66 million to GOP candidates in the 2020 election cycle, according to Bloomberg .

See: Harvard’s ties to slavery led it to create a $100 million fund — here are other educational institutions that have revealed similar connections

Griffin also gave $1 million to the Obama Foundation in 2017, a year after Barack Obama left the White House, and $500,000 to Joe Biden’s inaugural committee, per Forbes .

Griffin has spent millions seeking to cut taxes on the wealthy — and won

In 2020, Griffin spent $54 million for ads and other efforts to thwart a ballot measure in Illinois that would have put him and other ultrawealthy residents of the state on the hook for more taxes. The big spending paid off: The measure failed. Its approval would have added Illinois to the list of 32 U.S. states that set a higher tax rate on the wealthy than on other citizens.

Nonprofit ProPublica used IRS data to determine whether Griffin’s ballot effort was — for him, personally — worth the $54 million he spent. According to tax filings, Griffin’s annual income averaged $1.7 billion from 2013 to 2018 — the fourth-highest income in the country over that span. Using that average income as the marker, the proposed state tax increase, which would have raised the state income-tax rate to 8% from 5% on the highest incomes, would have cost Griffin around $51 million every year in extra tax over what he currently pays,  ProPublica says .

Griffin wasn’t done trying to influence Illinois politics. In 2022, he spent roughly $50 million to back a Republican candidate for Illinois governor, a suburban mayor named Richard Irvin, who didn’t make it out of the primary.

Griffin had vowed he was “all in” to unseat Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker when the hedge-fund giant placed his bet on Irvin, mayor of a western suburb of Chicago called Aurora. State Sen. Darren Bailey, a Trump-backed candidate who beat Irvin, later lost in the general election to Pritzker by some 12½ percentage points.

See also: Who is Harlan Crow? 4 things to know about the man who paid for Clarence Thomas’s luxury trips.

Griffin, an avid cyclist and runner who  gave $12 million to help fund a popular plan  to separate Chicago’s lakefront bike and foot paths, may no longer spend quite so much on Illinois politics. He announced in June that he had decided to move Citadel to Miami after 30 years in Chicago.

Griffin s horted the market on Black Monday as a teenager

1987’s Black Monday , a day that lives in infamy for many stock-market investors, was a big win for Griffin.

According to story by Institutional Investor , Griffin, then 19, had an investment fund worth $265,000 and had various short positions when the market crashed. Griffin’s fund also included some money from his grandmother, he said in an interview for the 2001 story.

On Oct. 19, 1987, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 508 points, a decline of almost 23%, while the S&P 500 plunged more than 20%, one of the biggest selling frenzies ever for the stock market. An equivalent percentage drop at today’s levels would shave more than 7,000 points off the Dow.

Griffin did not disclose how much his fund made from short positions on Black Monday.

Citadel was involved in the 2021’s ‘meme-stock’ phenomenon

In 2021, retail traders began an unprecedented move toward stocks like GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. in what some have called the Mother of All Short Squeezes .

Griffin announced that Citadel would invest $2 billion into the investment firm Melvin Capital, which at the time had suffered huge losses related to its short positions, including on GameStop.

Citadel made the investment in exchange for a share of Melvin Capital’s fees over the next three years, according to the Wall Street Journal. The investment enabled Melvin Capital to lower its leverage and avoid becoming a forced seller.

Despite the investment, Melvin Capital eventually announced its fund would be closing in May 2022.

“The whole GameStop conspiracy theory, I mean that’s come and gone,” Griffin said at the New York Times DealBook summit in November 2021. “It was fascinating to be in the center of that conspiracy.”

Read more about Citadel’s role in the meme-stock frenzy .

Read on: This investing tactic was left for dead but is about to make a comeback, says strategist 

CORRECTION: A previous version of this report mischaracterized Griffin’s $300 million gift to Harvard as a financial-aid donation and as the largest individual gift in the university’s history. Griffin’s latest gift, which is unrestricted and not earmarked for student aid, is not the university’s biggest individual donation. The story has been corrected.

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Billionaire Ken Griffin decided it was time to relocate the headquarters of his giant hedge fund Citadel from Chicago after a colleague was robbed while having a gun pressed to his head during a coffee run, according to a report.

Griffin, whose net worth is pegged by Forbes at $31 billion , announced earlier this year that his family and the investment firm would decamp from the Windy City in favor of Miami.

The 53-year-old financial tycoon cited Chicago’s soaring rate of violent crime as a key factor in the decision, telling Bloomberg News that he has personally been affected by Chicago’s descent into what the news site calls “anarchy.”

One of his colleagues went to get coffee when he was accosted by an armed assailant who put “a gun to his head” and robbed him, Griffin told the site.

Griffin said another colleague was outside waiting for a car when he was approached by “some random lunatic just trying to punch him in the head.”

Meanwhile, the Miami native is wasting no time in putting his stamp on his hometown, which is evolving into what observers call “Wall Street South.”

Earlier this month, Griffin set a Miami record by purchasing a waterfront compound for $109 million.

Citadel has also been busy snapping up hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commercial property in its new home — the trendy financial district of Brickell.

“We’re not sort of in — we’re all in,” Griffin told Bloomberg when asked about his plans for the company’s Miami expansion.

Griffin also revealed that he would be open to serving as Treasury secretary in a Ron DeSantis administration if the GOP governor of Florida decides to make a bid for the White House in 2024.

He told Bloomberg that he “will definitely be involved in the presidential race” and that he would consider moving to Washington, DC, if called upon to do so by a Republican president.

Last week, McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski told a group of business leaders that his company, which is headquartered in Chicago, is having difficulty recruiting talent due to the soaring crime rate.

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