Bill Ackman: the hedge fund manager rooting for Trump

Bill Ackman made his name as an activist investor and corporate raider. Now he’s discovering his political voice on X and backs Donald Trump for president.

Bill Ackman attends 2023 CSHL Double Helix Medals Dinner
(Image credit: Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

Highly successful activist hedge-fund bosses like Bill Ackman share one universal trait, says Felix Salmon for Axios. They all believe they know “how best to run a public company”. But when they try to do so themselves, it doesn’t always work out. 

British investors will be most familiar with Wall Street billionaire Bill Ackman through Pershing Square Holdings, his London- and Amsterdam-listed investment vehicle. While returns have been good, for most of the past decade the fund has been trading well below its net asset value, a fact that recently helped sink Ackman’s grand plans for a $25 billion New York listing of Pershing Square USA. 

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.