Topline
Billionaire hedge fund manager and Harvard alumnus Bill Ackman is calling for the resignation of the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology following their testimony at a contentious congressional hearing on campus antisemitism. His call to action quickly gained support from Elon Musk.
Harvard University President Claudine Gay testified at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism this week, as tensions mount on college campuses.
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Key Facts
In a post on X, Ackman, the CEO of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, accused Harvard President Claudine Gay, MIT President Sally Kornbluth and Penn President Liz Magill of exhibiting “profound educational, moral and ethical failures that pervade certain of our elite educational institutions due in large part to their failed leadership.”
Ackman linked to a video of conservative Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who asked in Tuesday’s hearing if “calling for the genocide” of Jewish people violates the three universities’ code of conduct or policies on bullying and harassment.
In her testimony, Gay responded that such speech can violate the Ivy League’s code of conduct “depending on the context” if the speech is “targeted at an individual.”
Kornbluth said such speech on campus would be “investigated as harassment if pervasive and severe,” while Magill said “if the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment,” adding that labeling speech as harassment or bullying is a “context-dependent decision.”
Ackman, who has repeatedly criticized Harvard leadership and called for some student protesters to be suspended amid rising tensions on campus following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip, argued in his post on X that antisemitism has “exploded on campus and around the world” because “of leaders like Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth who believe genocide depends on the context.”
Forbes has reached out to Gay, Kornbluth and Magill for comment.
Tangent
Stefanik, in her line of questioning at Tuesday’s hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, also called for Gay’s resignation, arguing the university has been “corrupted by its apparent desperation to appease the far-left.” Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), in a post on X Wednesday morning, called on the presidents of all three universities to resign, citing their answers to Stefanik’s question, and arguing their responses were “disgusting.”
Surprising Fact
Ackman’s social media post Tuesday night was re-posted early Wednesday morning by billionaire SpaceX, Tesla and X owner Elon Musk, who responded: “Calling for the genocide [death] of anyone obviously constitutes harassment.” Musk, whose tumultuous one-year tenure at the helm of X has garnered criticism from advertisers over concerns around rising hate speech on the platform, later responded in the thread, saying he purchased the site formerly known as Twitter to “stop the extinctionists.” Musk has also faced condemnation—including from the White House—after he endorsed a post critics have labeled antisemitic,