Ken Griffin founded investment firm Citadel

Harvard played a big part in Griffin’s financial journey. It was at the university that he first started investing, according to his biography in the Milken Institute. He installed a satellite dish in his dorm room in 1987 to get real-time stock information. He began investing with US$265,000 in capital, according to Bloomberg. Three years later, he started his own investment firm, Citadel, with US$4.2 million of investor money, reported Business Insider.

Reflecting on the events leading to this, Griffin told Bloomberg that the crash of 1987 led to him becoming a “boy genius”. “I knew I was boy lucky, because I was shorting the market intentionally, but outside investors went, ‘This person is a genius, he made money in the crash’ … it gave me a track record early on that was attractive to investors,” he recalled.

Citadel Securities, a separate market making firm also founded by Ken Griffin, has become a global leader in the field, serving over 1,600 clients including many of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds and central banks. Forbes reports that Citadel manages more than US$60 billion in assets.

The firm has made him the world’s most successful hedge fund manager in terms of earnings, per Reuters, with Bloomberg estimating he may have around US$9 billion in personal assets in the company’s funds.

He’s big on philanthropy, donating US$2 billion so far

Griffin is one of the world’s biggest private donors to charities and non-profit organisations. Reuters noted that he has donated over US$2 billion to philanthropic projects during his lifetime.

In 2023 alone, Griffin made a US$400 million joint donation with music mogul David Geffen to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, as well as making a US$25 million gift to the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami towards building a new five-storey surgical tower. In the past year he also dug deep for education, donating US$25 million to New York charter school Success Academy, and US$20 million to Miami Dade College.

As the world was gripped by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Griffin spent another several million working with the US government, acquiring four planes to transport around 800 Americans out of the epicentre of the outbreak in Wuhan, China. His company also donated millions to relief efforts in the province.

“I contacted US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. After realising there were hundreds of Americans still in Wuhan, we worked around the clock to find a way to safely bring them home,” he told the Philanthropy Roundtable.

As Covid-19 spread and affected the lives of billions, Griffin donated millions to vaccine research and community projects across Chicago and Miami, reported Forbes.

His mega donations to Harvard and Chicago U

According to the Harvard Crimson, Griffin has donated over US$500 million to Harvard, including a US$300 million donation to its faculty of arts and sciences.

In 2017, the University of Chicago renamed its economics department in honour of the businessman, after he had made a total contribution of nearly US$150 million.

Funding the Republican Party

According to Fortune, Griffin is one of the biggest donors to the Republican Party, reporting in 2022 that the businessman had given Florida governor Ron DeSantis US$5 million for his re-election race.

He donated four times that amount in 2017, with the Chicago Tribune reporting he gave US$20 million to Governor Bruce Rauner’s re-election campaign.

Bloomberg estimated he spent US$66 million on the party during the 2020 elections.

He has a massive art collection

Griffin is an avid art collector, with a portfolio worth well over half a billion US dollars.

Art News and CNBC noted that among his signature pieces are the US$300 million Willem de Kooning painting Interchange, bought in 2015; Jackson Pollock’s Number 17A, bought for US$200 million; and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump, bought for US$100 million. He also owns Jasper Johns’ False Start, bought for US$80 million, and Paul Cezanne’s Curtain, Jug and Fruit Bowl, bought for US$60 million.

The Wall Street Journal reported that, in 2021, he bought a first-edition copy of the US Constitution for US$43.2 million.

His property investments exceed US$1 billion

Griffin’s love for the finer things in life also extends to property, with his portfolio being worth over US$1 billion, per the Wall Street Journal.

In 2019, he bought “America’s most expensive house” – a four-floor penthouse in Manhattan, New York, worth US$238 million – reported the same publication.

He also set a record for the most expensive house in Chicago when he bought several floors of a condo in the city for over US$58 million, per Northshore Chicago Homes.

And he could break the most expensive house in America record again, with the Wall Street Journal noting he has spent around US$250 million since 2012 on land in Miami, Florida for a mega-mansion in the prestigious Palm Beach area.

The New York Post estimated that, once complete, the property could be worth around US$1 billion, and stretch from the Intracoastal to the Atlantic Ocean.

In addition to numerous bedrooms and bathrooms, the house is expected to have multiple swimming pools and water features, tennis courts, a spa and an event terrace.

He has also bought a US$60 million Miami Beach penthouse, two bay-front houses in the city worth around US$106 million, and a mega-mansion in Star Island valued at around US$169 million.

He also owns homes around the world, including a London house near Buckingham Palace worth over US$120 million, reported the Financial Times.

He has two private jets

CNBC reported in 2020 that Griffin owns a 2001 Bombardier Global Express, estimated to be valued at US$9.5 million, and a 2012 Bombardier Global 6000, worth US$50 million.