Bill Ackman took a Wall Street tactic to an Ivy League fight in his attempt to oust Harvard’s president

When Bill Ackman, a financier who got rich betting against companies’ stocks, decided to wage a battle against Harvard’s president, he relied on a strategy that earned him a reputation as one of the most ruthless investors on Wall Street.

When Bill Ackman, a financier who got rich betting against companies’ stocks, decided to wage a battle against Harvard’s president, he relied on a strategy that earned him a reputation as one of the most ruthless investors on Wall Street. Ackman, a Harvard alum who sits on the law school’s board, and a handful of other deep-pocketed donors have been furious over what they see as Harvard’s inaction on antisemitism on campus. That anger reached a boiling point earlier this month when Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, stumbled during congressional testimony and failed to give a full-throated condemnation of hate speech calling for genocide against Jews — comments that she later apologized for. Of all the donors threatening to yank their money from Harvard, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania and others, none have been as relentless as Ackman. The billionaire has posted open letters, tweeted and even pushed to publicly identify students who expressed anti-Israel sentiment in the days after Hamas’ attack. In particular, Ackman wants Gay, the first Black woman to lead Harvard, fired. To that end, he has gone on X to claim (without evidence), that Harvard hired Gay only to fulfill diversity requirements. He has called Gay unqualified for the job and accused her of plagiarism — an accusation she and Harvard deny. All of Ackman’s rabble-rousing to try to sway public opinion comes straight from the activist short-selling playbook that he practically authored. Put simply, activist shorts win when the company they’ve bet against fails. One of the most vital tools for executing such a play: a big, booming megaphone. CNN has reached out to Ackman via his company, Pershing Square Capital Management. Representatives didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.