BVC: Bill Ackman

I recently posted about the human ball-sack Marc Andreesen’s Billionaire Victim Club, calling him “This Fucking Guy”, but I think the category Billionaire Victim Club is a better tag.

And hat tip to Kenneth for his suggestion that I look at Bill Ackman.

Oh yeah, that fucking guy…

Backgrounder

In case you don’t know who he is, he is an uber-wealthy hedge fund manager, born in 1966, in 1992 he broke out and made a name for himself.

What brought him to my attention was when his fund, Pershing Square, in 2004 decided to go big short on the MLM firm Herbalife, claiming it is a pyramid scheme. He lost his shirt in that one, but it was a defining moment, and his all-in maximalist strategy. Carl Icahn basically schooled him. Still he came out OK, licked his wounds.

First infraction

The next we hear from him is post October 7, and his fire was trained on the president of his alma mater, Harvard (HBS in particular), and he claimed her pelt.

From Snopes:

The plagiarism allegations against Gay surfaced in December 2023 when Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who helped popularize a right-wing campaign against "critical race theory" in education, published findings of supposed plagiarism in Gay's doctoral thesis. This claim of plagiarism is a more subtle form than the "copying" that many people think of — Gay did cite the sources she took the material from. However, because she used the text verbatim from those articles, she should have included quotation marks around those passages in addition to listing her original source.

Ackman was a huge driver behind this ouster, posting publicly practically daily.

But of course, every accusation is a confession. Ackman’s second wife, Neri Oxman, a professor at MIT, was then caught up in her own plagiarism scandal on her doctoral thesis.

From Business Insider (web archive link):

Oxman plagiarized multiple paragraphs of her 2010 doctoral dissertation, Business Insider found, including at least one passage directly lifted from other writers without citation.

Her husband, Ackman, has taken a hardline stance on plagiarism. On Wednesday, responding to news that Gay is set to remain a part of Harvard's faculty after she resigned as president, he wrote on X that Gay should be fired completely due to "serious plagiarism issues."

"Students are forced to withdraw for much less," Ackman continued. "Rewarding her with a highly paid faculty position sets a very bad precedent for academic integrity at Harvard."

Oops.

Back to Snopes:

With that context, we can now turn back to Oxman. According to an exposé published in Business Insider on Jan 4, work by Oxman exhibited a pattern of plagiarism similar to that of which Gay was accused. The article claimed that, in Oxman's doctoral dissertation at MIT, she lifted passages from various sources without adequate citation. In these accusations, much like those against Gay, Oxman did often mention the source of the material, but neglected to add quotation marks around paragraphs she used verbatim. That is a violation of MIT's academic integrity handbook, which reads:Plagiarism occurs when you use another's words, ideas, assertions, data, or figures and do not acknowledge that you have done so.

If you use the words, ideas, or phrasing of another person or from published material, you mustUse quotation marks around the words and cite the source, orParaphrase or summarize acceptably and cite the source.

If you use charts, graphs, data sets, or numerical information obtained from another person or from published material, you must also cite the source.

You must always acknowledge your sources by citing them. In this way, you have the right to use another's creative output by giving that person credit for the work s/he has done.

After the Business Insider article was published, Oxman apologized for the errors discovered by Business Insider in a post on her X account. "I regret and apologize for these errors," she wrote.

Yeah, that’s not good. Not one bit.

But that isn’t what makes Ackman a charter member of the BVC. Nope, that is his realization of his dream to play in a pro tennis tournament.

Sad Rich Fuck Buys a seed…

Literally, Ackman has fantasized about being a tennis pro.

From The Spun (link):

Ackman, 59, is one of the richest people in the world. The hedge fund manager has a net worth of $9.4 billion. He's currently the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management.

The billionaire, who is known for his philanthropy, is a major tennis fan. He's been playing the sport a lot as of late, too. And he says he's been playing better than ever.

I mean, sure, he might be playing better tennis, the best of his life, but …

But does that mean that he was ready to play in a legitimate, professional doubles match? Probably not. And it showed this week.

Ackman made his pro-tennis debut at the Hall of Fame Open doubles tournament in Newport, Rhode Island. It did not go very well.

Ya, you could say that…

So, I guess if you have true F-U money, you can buy yourself a spot in a pro tournament, but that doesn’t mean you are competitive. It just makes you a twat.

Bill Ackman joins Marc Andreesen in the nascent Billionaire Victims Club. Subscribe now so you never miss an episode!