Ken Griffin on Trump, Harvard and Why Novice Investors Won’t Beat the Pros
The founder of $66 billion hedge fund Citadel is making waves in Miami, the nucleus of the new “Wall Street South.”
Ken Griffin at the Citadel offices in Miami.
Photographer: Scott McIntyre/Bloomberg
In the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, about 50 staffers from Citadel Securities assembled in an empty ballroom at a Palm Beach, Florida, resort so they could keep trading together while the rest of the world shut down. Holed up in luxury with their families and basically no one else, they “created perhaps the first bubble in America,” says Citadel founder and billionaire investor Ken Griffin, 56. His team has since vacated the Four Seasons but not the broader Miami region, where in 2022 he relocated the market-making firm along with his $66 billion hedge fund—also called Citadel—quickly establishing himself as the de facto leader of the new “Wall Street South.”
In a wide-ranging interview for the Bloomberg Originals show Bullish, the major GOP donor shared his views on President Donald Trump; his alma mater, Harvard University; and his Florida homecoming. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.