Bill Ackman has a new comrade in his crusade against antisemitism: Sam Altman
Justin Sullivan via Getty Images; Sylvain Gaboury/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
- Bill Ackman has a new comrade in his crusade against antisemitism.
- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he'd underestimated just how bad antisemitism had gotten in the US.
- Both businessmen have written posts on X saying antisemitism is a problem in America.
Sam Altman and Bill Ackman appear to be on the same page.
On Thursday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to X to share his views on the state of antisemitism in the US.
"For a long time I said that antisemitism, particularly on the American left, was not as bad as people claimed," Altman wrote in an X post. "I'd like to just state that I was totally wrong."
"I still don't understand it, really. Or know what to do about it. But it is so fucked," Altman, who is of Jewish descent, continued.
Altman's comments are notable for two reasons. For one, the tech executive rarely makes public statements about his political views.
And second, Altman's views appear to put him on the same page as Ackman when it comes to antisemitism in America.
In the two months since Hamas launched a series of brutal terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, Ackman has repeatedly railed against students, organizations, and college leadership, questioning them about what he says is a serious problem of antisemitism on college campuses.
Ackman, who is also of Jewish descent, reposted Altman's X post on Thursday night shortly after it was published.
Business leaders are taking a stance where college leaders are not
To be sure, Altman's recent public statement on antisemitism in America amounts to a fraction of Ackman's ongoing commentary on the matter.
The Harvard alumnus has spent the last two months mounting a pressure campaign on his alma mater. In October, Ackman asked his alma mater to out a group of students who signed a letter that blamed Israel for Hamas' terrorist attack.
Then in November, Ackman published a 3,138-word letter to Harvard's president, where he outlined a seven-step plan to reduce antisemitism on campus.
On Tuesday, Ackman called for the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania to resign after their congressional testimonies about on-campus antisemitism.
During the hearing, the presidents were repeatedly asked if calling for the genocide of Jews violates their universities' rules on bullying and harassment.
All three school presidents refused to give answers that unequivocally condemned the genocide of Jews.
Ackman slammed their responses, writing on X: "The presidents' answers reflect the profound educational, moral and ethical failures that pervade certain of our elite educational institutions due in large part to their failed leadership."
While the volume of Ackman's and Altman's commentary differs greatly, their comments do make one thing clear. Business leaders are doing what the three university presidents wouldn't do in Congress on Tuesday: categorically condemning antisemitism in all its forms.
Representatives for Altman and Ackman did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.
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