Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat on Tuesday slammed Republican megadonor Ken Griffin’s “indefensibly stupid” $300,000,000 gift to Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
“The fact that Griffin is presumably ‘fiscally conservative but socially liberal’ provides some vague way of reconciling this with his support for Ron DeSantis, but really if you’re any kind of Republican in 2023 this sort of giving is indefensibly stupid,” Douthat tweeted. (RELATED: ‘Really, Really Ugly Facts’: Citadel CEO Ken Griffin Calls Out FTX For ‘Trump Lose’ Section)
The fact that Griffin is presumably “fiscally conservative but socially liberal” provides some vague way of reconciling this with his support for Ron DeSantis, but really if you’re any kind of Republican in 2023 this sort of giving is indefensibly stupid.https://t.co/WBCedvqOW8
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) April 11, 2023
Griffin, a hedge fund manager worth $35 billion, donated over $70 million to Republicans in the 2022 midterm cycle, making him the party’s second-largest donor of the cycle, according to watchdog group OpenSecrets. After Republicans’ underwhelming performance in the Nov. 2022 midterms, he urged the party to move on from former President Donald Trump.
Harvard announced Griffin’s $300 million donation on Tuesday, and the unrestricted nature of the gift means Harvard can use the funds at its own discretion, the Harvard Crimson reported. Griffin has given nearly $2 billion to philanthropic causes. The school also said it would name its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences after Griffin. Harvard named its undergraduate financial aid office after Griffin when he donated $150 million to financial aid in 2014.
Griffin graduated from Harvard in 1989 and began investing during his time at the school. In 1990, he founded Citadel, a Miami-based hedge fund with an estimated $57 billion in assets under management, per Forbes.