Harvard Should Work With Trump To Preserve Taxpayer Funding: Bill Ackman
Charlie Kirk Staff
05/07/2025

Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman believes that President Donald Trump is well within his rights to pull Harvard University’s tax-exempt status if massive changes are not made.
He appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” where he said the university should work with the Trump administration to implement changes and stop being a “political advocacy group.”
“The wrong thing to do is to receive a letter from the administration and write back saying, ‘We’re doing nothing. In fact, we’re going to sue you.’ That’s what Harvard did,” the hedge fund manager said.
“What Harvard should have done was to say, ‘You know, President Trump, you make some good points. Taxpayer money coming to Harvard—that’s a privilege, not a right. And if taxpayer money is going to an institution, the institution cannot have massive amounts of administrative bloat, waste, or bureaucracy. We’re going to eliminate it. We’re going to hire AlixPartners or a restructuring firm. We’re going to take a 3G zero-based budgeting approach to the way we run our administration. Inefficiency is causing harm, and we’re wasting taxpayer money,’” he said.
“Mr. President, you’re right. Harvard has become — there is not viewpoint diversity at Harvard. Students are self-censoring their remarks in classrooms. Faculty are doing the same because people are afraid to have real conversations,’” Ackman said.
“You can’t learn. You go to college to be exposed to a broad array of ideas, and you’re not, that’s not happening at Harvard. Free speech is not happening at Harvard. So, you acknowledge the areas where the President is absolutely correct, and you say, ‘Look, we’re going to fix those areas, okay? We want to make a deal, Mr. President,” he advised.
“What have we seen from Trump? He asks for the moon, kind of shock and awe. Okay, same thing is true for Harvard. That most recent letter—you could argue it’s certainly overreaching in some of the elements, but he wants to make a deal,” the hedge fund manager said.
“Make a deal with the President, commit to fix these things, which, by the way, your alumni want you to fix. It’s in the best interest of Harvard, and treat shareholder and taxpayer money like a fiduciary. And they’re not doing that. And Harvard is not in a good financial position. This is something I think is not well appreciated. They nominally have a $53 billion endowment. I don’t believe the carrying values of their endowment. 80% of the assets are invested in real estate, private equity, and venture capital,” he said.
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