Born William Albert Ackman in 1966 to Jewish parents in Chappaqua, New York, he was a Democrat for years before switching to support Trump during the 2016 election campaign.
In an interview with CTech, an Israeli technology website, Ackman said he has “always identified as Jewish. My parents are Jewish, it’s an important part of my heritage. I was raised in the Reform movement, so not particularly religious, but I also raised my kids Jewish.”
The founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, a hedge fund he started in 2004, Ackman became well-known in the industry for his bold, sometimes polarising investment strategies and activist investor style.
Pershing, which manages around $19 billion in assets, is one of the largest hedge funds in the world but only has around 40 employees.
As CEO, he is estimated to have made more than £2.5 billion during the Covid-19 pandemic by hedging against market fallout and purchasing shares in companies he believed were undervalued due to the market downturn.
With a net worth of over $9 billion, Ackman has been described as a “prolific philanthropist” and is one of the signatories of “The Giving Pledge”, a campaign established by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to give away at least 50 per cent of their wealth by the end of their life.
Bill Ackman in tefillin (Credit: Instagram/Farroyossi)[Missing Credit]
Despite being a long-time donor to prominent Democratic candidates and organisations, Ackman voted for Trump in both the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections and says he has given more to Republican campaigns than Democratic ones.
Renowned for his media savvy, Ackman is a prominent X user, where he has over 1.7 million followers. This week he claimed on X to have been “centrist my entire life” and has given about $825 million to various philanthropic causes driven by a desire to “solve societal problems and improving quality of life.” Of that, about $33 million was for Jewish-related causes.
He has become more outspoken against what he sees as the problems on the left since the Hamas’s attack against Israel on October 7. He said he did “not appreciate the problems with [Diversity Equity Inclusion], elite universities, and what the Democratic Party had become until I did my homework beginning on October 8, 2023”.
Six months after October 7, Ackman, a prominent and outspoken Zionist, refrained from endorsing President Joe Biden in 2024 over his alleged lack of support for Israel.
And in the days following the atrocities of October 7, Ackman made headlines for calling on Harvard University, his alma mater, to publish the names of people who signed an open letter signed by undergraduates that stated Israel was “entirely responsible” for the violence, with his stated aim being to ensure his company would not hire any of the signatories.
“One should not be able to hide behind a corporate shield when issuing statements supporting the actions of terrorists,” he said in defence of his position.
Bill Ackman, CEO and portfolio manager at Pershing Square Capital Management, attends the New York Times annual DealBook summit at Jazz at Lincoln Center, December 04, 2024 (Credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)Getty Images
He later helped to arrange the screening of the film “Bearing Witness to October 7th Massacre” at Harvard University, which is a compilation of footage largely filmed by Hamas bodycams worn during the attacks. Ackman also advocated for the removal of Harvard President Claudine Gay from her position after judging her answers about antisemitism in front of a congressional committee as “insufficient”.
Following last year’s violent public assault on Israelis in Amsterdam, he announced he would be withdrawing his business operations in the city, arguing that “leaving jurisdiction that fails to protect its tourists and minority populations combine both good business and moral principles.”
In his personal life, Ackman was previously married to a Jewish landscape architect, with whom he has three children, before separating. In 2019, Ackman married Neri Oxman, an Israeli-American designer and professor who now sits with him on the philanthropic Pershire Square Foundation board of trustees. In 2021, the pair were listed by The Chronicle Philanthropy’s top 50 list of most generous donors.
When the tariffs came into effect on April 2, President Trump posted to his social media account that it was “liberation day”.
But, while supporting Trump’s use of tariffs to address trade imbalances more broadly, Ackman said the current implemented plan – placed on allies and adversaries alike – could cause investments in America to grind to a halt and for consumers to reduce spending, and in the process damage the United States’ reputation as a stable, reliable trading partner.
