Bill Ackman

Bill Ackman is the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund he founded in 2004 that manages approximately $19 billion in assets as of 2026. Born May 11, 1966, in Chappaqua, New York, Ackman earned his undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1988 and his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1992. He built Pershing Square into one of the most high-profile activist investment funds in the world, known for concentrated, conviction-driven positions in undervalued public companies. His marriage in 2019 to Neri Oxman — an Israeli-American architect, biologist, and MIT professor who was born in Haifa — deepened personal ties to Israel that had already been significant through his philanthropic giving and public advocacy.

Ackman's emergence as one of the most consequential voices against campus antisemitism began in late 2023 when he led a public campaign targeting Harvard University's response to the October 7 Hamas attacks. He personally drafted and circulated letters to Harvard's Board of Overseers demanding accountability for institutional failure, used his X platform — where he commands millions of followers — to publish the names of student organizations that had signed a letter blaming Israel for the Hamas attack, and organized a coalition of fellow Harvard alumni donors to threaten funding withdrawal. Harvard President Claudine Gay's congressional testimony in December 2023, in which she failed to give a direct answer about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard's conduct policies, became a national inflection point. Ackman was among the most prominent voices demanding her resignation; Gay resigned on January 2, 2024. He repeated a similar pressure campaign targeting University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, who resigned days after the same congressional hearing.

Beyond institutional accountability, Ackman has backed his advocacy with capital. He announced a pledge to invest $1 billion in Israel's economy following the October 7 attacks — a commitment he framed explicitly as a demonstration that economic support for Israel must accompany political support. He purchased a $20 million apartment in Tel Aviv as part of that commitment. In April 2026, the University of Haifa awarded Ackman an honorary doctorate, recognizing his sustained financial and advocacy commitment to Israel and to combating antisemitism in Western institutions. At Rank 12, Ackman represents the shareholder-activist model applied to pro-Israel advocacy: identifying leverage points, applying maximum pressure through capital and public platforms, and producing measurable institutional outcomes.