Ken Griffin’s Record $3B Carnegie Mellon Gift ‘a Loss for New York,’ Business Leaders Say

New York business leaders say the city’s loss is Miami’s gain after billionaire hedge-fund founder Ken Griffin pledged a record $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University, the largest single gift ever made to an American university, according to the university and multiple outlets.

Steve Fulop, president of the Partnership for New York City, told 77 WABC’s “Cats Roundtable” on Sunday that the donation was “a loss for us,” arguing that philanthropy does not double when wealthy figures split their time and presence between cities, the New York Post reported.

Griffin’s gift — $2 billion toward a new 35-acre Carnegie Mellon campus in Miami’s Wynwood neighbourhood and $1 billion for the university’s main Pittsburgh campus — was announced last week. The Pittsburgh computer science school will be renamed the Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science, the university said.

The donation broke the previous record of $2 billion set by Nike co-founder Phil Knight, according to multiple reports. It also caps Griffin’s pivot to Florida: the Citadel founder, worth more than $57 billion according to Forbes, moved his home and his firm’s headquarters from Chicago to Miami in 2022.

Griffin has drawn New York’s ire before; Mayor Zohran Mamdani used the billionaire as a poster child for a proposed tax on pieds-à-terre, according to the Post.

Construction of the Miami campus is expected to begin next year, with enrolment starting in 2028.

Sources

New York Post — Ken Griffin’s $3B Carnegie Mellon donation is ‘a loss for’ NYC, business leaders say
AP (via Reflector) — Hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin gives record $3B to Carnegie Mellon to build Miami campus