Ward Unreconstructed

🚨🇦🇷 PRESIDENT MILEI: WE ENDED THE CHEATING, ARGENTINA FINALLY HAS A TRANSPARENT VOTE! "Thank you to all Argentines for this new election, for this new act of democracy. For the wonderful election we just held. Debuting a new voting system. The single paper ballot. Which had never been implemented before. And unlike what usually motivates those in power, because this system ends the cheating, we said we would do it, and we did it, because we stand for a transparent and democratic system." Source: @MLauraAssis, @JMilei

@TuckerCarlson went on a rant yesterday @TPUSA and suggested that I was in Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘constellation of people’ who have been getting away with scams. His evidence is that ‘the most useless people have no actual skills become billionaires.” He referred to me as an example of one of the most useless billionaires in Jeffrey Epstein’s constellation: “[C]an you answer the question: ‘How did Bill Ackman get $9 billion?’ Bill Ackman, a pretty impressive guy? I know Bill Ackman. No. Bill Ackman is like well-connected and super aggressive; that’s it. I think well connected, super aggressive people deserve a fair living like everybody else, but if you are accruing nine [billion] dollars just because you are willing to do anything, I don’t know why we have to pretend that that is good.” In order to address Tucker’s defamatory statements, I thought it would be useful to share a few facts: I never met Jeffrey Epstein, flew on his planes, went to any of his parties and/or properties, or interacted with him ever. When my wife was a professor at MIT, she received a $125,000 grant from Epstein (prior to my knowing of her existence). She met Epstein once for 45 minutes at the request of the head of the MIT MediaLab, made a presentation about her work, and later got a grant. That was the last time she ever met or spoke to Jeffrey Epstein. If this is why Tucker thinks I am in Jeffrey Epstein’s constellation, it’s clear he doesn’t know anything about astronomy. With respect to how I generated a net worth of more than $9 billion, I share the following: I inherited good genes from wonderful parents who instilled good values in me. I never received an allowance so I worked odd jobs washing and waxing cars, digging ditches, lawn and tree care, etc. for pocket money beginning when I was about 10. My parents gave me a huge head start by paying for my education including college and business school. I paid for my housing and expenses, and they paid for my tuition. I worked through college selling advertising for the Let’s Go Harvard Student Travel Guides. I learned a lot about sales working in a basement of a dorm smiling and dialing small hostels, hotels, and car rental companies around the world selling ads to strangers. After college I went to work for my dad’s real estate mortgage brokerage company. I received a $40,000 draw and generated more than $600,000 in commissions in 18 months, making me one of the largest, if not the largest producer during my short term there. I received only 15% of the commissions I generated which contributed to my choosing to pursue an alternative career as an investor, and went to business school to learn more about investing. When I graduated from business school, my parents gave me $100,000 in a settlor trust. My dad said that I would never inherit anything more as he wanted me to 'make it on my own.' The funds never left the trust, and I don’t include them in my net worth. My good economic fortune comes largely from compounding, that is, investing over the long term and building a successful investment business. I started a hedge fund called Gotham Partners when I graduated from business school. I guess you could call me aggressive, but I wasn’t well connected then so my strategy was to cold call super rich people that I found on the Forbes 400 list to raise money. I called about 100 or more people and managed to get 25 or so meetings and raise $2.8 million from six people. Four of the six were on the Forbes list. One was a guy my then-girlfriend (eventually my first wife’s) mother sold an apartment to, and another was the father of a classmate from business school. My dad initially refused to invest, calling the launch of a hedge fund with no experience a stupid idea, but when he saw other much wealthier people commit, he put in $200,000. Gotham Partners, as we called it, generated strong returns with ultimately $500 million under management, but it had a somewhat ignominious end 10 years later. We had shorted MBIA and bought CDS on the company, and I wrote a white paper on why the company did not deserve its triple-A credit rating (briem.com/files/Ackman_M…). MBIA did not like it and went after us aggressively, catalyzing an investigation by Eliot Spitzer. We ended up winding up the fund and I dealt with regulators for a year or so. The Gotham investors ultimately did well and nearly all invested in a new fund I launched about a year later called Pershing Square. (Eventually I got a near apology note from the SEC after I recreated the MBIA CDS short at Pershing Square and it blew up during the Great Financial Crisis. See: The Confidence Game by Christine Richard) I was able to launch Pershing Square due to backing from Joe Steinberg and Ian Cumming of Leucadia National Corporation, which in 2013 merged with Jefferies. I met Joe during my early real estate career and we did a number of co-investments with him at Gotham Partners including a co-investment in our MBIA short and CDS position. Joe and Ian, i.e., Leucadia invested $50 million along with my $4 million to launch Pershing Square. Without their backing, Pershing Square would have been an improbable launch in light of the cloud over me due to the windup of Gotham Partners and the regulatory investigation for which I did not get formal closure until a year or so later. I offered Joe and Ian 20% of the Pershing Square management company as a thank you for their commitment, and they wouldn't take it. My net worth today comes from three principal assets: 1. My initial investment in the Pershing Square funds has increased 56 times since Pershing Square’s inception due to compounding. I also increased my investment in the Pershing Square funds over time by reinvesting incentive fees net of taxes that I earned from our investors, and in 2017 during a rough patch, I doubled down by borrowing $300 million and investing more. My investment in the Pershing Square funds today is worth about $2.5 billion 2. The management company which employs me and the rest of the Pershing Square team has become a very profitable business over time. I started Pershing Square with de minimis capital. We sold a 10% interest in the business last year to strategic investors at a $9.5 billion pre-money valuation. I own about half of the Pershing Square management company, the value of which grows as we compound the value of the funds we manage. My interest in the Pershing Square management company is worth about $6.5 billion today. Pershing Square has generated one of the best investment track records of any investment firm over the last 21 and one-half years, generating 2.9 times the return of the S&P 500 over the same period net of all fees and expenses. While Tucker may believe investment management is a useless activity, I expect our investors would say otherwise. Furthermore, our approach to investing is not just buying and selling securities. We have been an active and engaged investor since we launched, and have played a major role in turning around poorly managed, troubled, and/or bankrupt companies with Canadian Pacific, Chipotle, and General Growth being good examples of this activity. Our investment approach has benefited all of the stakeholders of the company’s in which we have invested, including shareholders, employees, customers, and the communities in which they operate. While not all of our investments have been successful, the substantial majority of our active investments have generated large returns for shareholders. Our biggest loss was a passive investment in Valeant Pharmaceuticals where another activist led the board of directors and drove the strategic direction of the company. So much for passive investments. While we have generated excellent returns for our investors, we have made substantially more money for the other public shareholders who invested alongside us over the last 21 years, and we don’t charge them any fees. We are typically a less than 10% owner of the companies in which we invest so more than 90% of the value we have helped create has gone to the investing public. We have been an important leader and innovator in the shareholder activist movement, which has led to a greater balance of power between shareholders, management and boards. I believe a meaningful driver of our country’s economic and stock market outperformance over the last 20 years versus our global competitors has been driven by shareholder activism, as many new shareholder activists have followed in our footsteps and accelerated value creation in Corporate America improving management, governance, capital allocation, operational efficiency, and driving long-term shareholder value creation. 3. The balance of my assets are in mostly private investments. I have been an active investor in start-ups. I was a day-one investor in Coupang and have invested a few hundred million in other start-ups and venture funds. My original $2.5 million investment in Coupang in 2009 became a billion dollars in 2021, which I gave to the Pershing Square Foundation and other philanthropies. My start up investment activity has contributed to technology innovation, job growth, wealth creation, as well as scientific innovation in biotechnology and other fields. I have also invested directly in real estate, private companies as well as a few funds. The Pershing Square Foundation and affiliated DAFs have granted over $900 million to various causes (see my response to @cernovich x.com/BillAckman/sta…) and have about $900 million of uncommitted assets. So, in short, I got a huge start with great parents, and a wonderful education paid for by mom and dad. Despite Tucker’s statements to the contrary, there were no scams and a lot of useful activity behind the wealth I have created. Tucker says he knows me. In short, we have had only two interactions. Five years ago, he put on a show claiming I committed market manipulation and he did so without calling me to check the facts. When I sent him a detailed letter proving his allegations were entirely false, he called me. On the call, I addressed every one of his additional questions to his apparent satisfaction. He didn’t quite apologize, but he said he would write something up and read it on his show later that night to clear the record. I thanked him for offering to do so. Unfortunately, he did not keep his word. Six months or so later, he again made the same false accusation on one of his shows. I think he largely did so to taunt me into coming on the show as he offered me an opportunity for rebuttal if I came on when I reached out for a correction. He has also asked me to come on his show multiple times on other topics, particularly as the issues I focused on became more aligned with his views, but I refused to come on his show until he cleared the record, which he never did. I actually used to enjoy Tucker’s show on Fox. I thought he raised important issues and had interesting guests. Now he has gone off the reservation, in particular about Iran, Israel, and the Middle East. Some say his politics relate to where his business’ funding comes from and some say he just doesn’t like Jews. I have no idea what motivates him and why he appears to be a changed man. I was an early and strong proponent of President Trump’s ultimate decision to take out Iran’s nuclear capability, which Tucker opposed, and I have been a strong voice in support of Israel so perhaps that’s why he attacked me yesterday. Tucker owes me an apology. I know I am not going to get one because he is not man enough to care about the truth. At least, that’s been my experience with him. With respect to Tucker's tens or hundreds of millions, it would be great for him to explain how he is contributing to society with the work that he does. While useless billionaires are bad, harmful millionaires are definitively worse.