Bill Ackman: evaluation

Transcript context

…Do you see the criticism that you are a billionaire donor and you sort of used your power and financial influence unfairly to affect the governing structure of Harvard, in this case? First of all, I never threatened to use financial or other resources. The only thing I did here was wrote. I wrote public letters, I spoke privately to a couple members of the board. I spoke for 45 minutes to the chairman. None of those conversations were effective or went anywhere, as far as I could tell. I think my public letters and then some of the posts, I did and that little three minute video excerpt had an impact, but it wasn’t about … I mean you can criticize me for being a billionaire, but it was really the words. It’s a bit like, again, going back to the corporate analogy, it’s not the fact that you own 5% of the company that causes people to vote in your favor, it’s the fact that your ideas are right. After the congressional testimony, the board of Harvard said that they were unanimously, a hundred percent behind President Gay. Clearly, I was ineffective. Ultimately what took her down was other, I would say, activists who identified issues with academic integrity and then she lost the confidence of the faculty. Once that happens, it’s hard to stay. I wanted her to be fired, basically, or be forced to resign because of failures of leadership, because that would’ve sent a message about the importance of leadership. Failure to stop a emergence of antisemitism on campus. There’s some news today; the protests are getting worse. Is there some tension between free speech on college campuses and disciplining students for calls of genocide?…

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