Kenneth C. Griffin facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ken Griffin
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Griffin in 2017
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| Born |
Kenneth Cordele Griffin
October 15, 1968 Daytona Beach, Florida, U.S.
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| Education | Harvard University (BA) |
| Occupation | Hedge fund manager Entrepreneur Investor |
| Years active | 1990–present |
| Known for | Founder of Citadel LLC and Citadel Securities |
| Title | CEO and co-CIO, Citadel LLC |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) |
Katherine Weingartt
(m. 1991; div. 1996)Anne Dias
(m. 2003; div. 2015) |
| Children | 3 |
Kenneth Cordele Griffin (born October 15, 1968) is an American investor, entrepreneur, and manager of a hedge fund, which is a company that invests money for wealthy people. He founded and runs a large hedge fund called Citadel LLC. He also owns Citadel Securities, a company that helps make the buying and selling of stocks happen smoothly.
As of March 2025, Griffin had an estimated net worth of $42.2 billion. This made him the 34th-richest person in the world. He is also known for being very generous. He has donated over $1.5 billion to charities, especially those focused on education, science, and medicine.
Griffin also gives millions of dollars to political candidates and groups, mostly those with Republican or conservative ideas.
Contents
Early Life and School Days
Ken Griffin was born in 1968 in Daytona Beach, Florida. His father was an executive for building supply companies and worked as a project manager for General Electric. Griffin grew up mostly in Boca Raton, Florida.
In high school, he was the president of the math club. He even started his own small company from his bedroom, selling educational software through the mail. He told a newspaper he wanted to be a businessman or a lawyer when he grew up.
Griffin began studying at Harvard University in 1986. He started investing money right away. He convinced the school to let him put a satellite dish on his dorm roof to get live stock market prices. With $265,000 he got from his grandmother and others, he started his first investment fund just days after his 19th birthday. He made a lot of money by betting that the stock market would go down during the Black Monday crash of 1987. He graduated in 1989 with a degree in economics.
Building a Business Career
After college, Griffin moved to Chicago and worked for an investment company. The founder, Frank Meyer, gave him $1 million to invest. Griffin earned a 70% profit in just one year.
Founding Citadel
In 1990, Griffin started his own company, Citadel LLC, with $4.6 million. The company was very successful. In the early 2000s, he also started Citadel Securities. This company is a market maker, meaning it helps people buy and sell stocks quickly and easily.
By 2003, at age 34, Griffin was the youngest person on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, with a net worth of $650 million.
During the 2008 financial crisis, Citadel lost a lot of money. For a while, Griffin had to stop his investors from taking their money out. But the company bounced back the next year, earning a 62% return.
The GameStop Controversy
In January 2021, Citadel was involved in the GameStop short squeeze. A group of everyday investors on the internet started buying lots of stock in the company GameStop. This caused the stock's price to shoot up.
This hurt other big investment firms that had bet GameStop's stock would go down. One of these firms, Melvin Capital, lost a lot of money. Citadel invested $2 billion to help them.
Around the same time, the popular trading app Robinhood stopped users from buying more GameStop stock. Because Citadel Securities handles many of Robinhood's trades, some people worried there was a conflict of interest. Griffin later testified before the U.S. Congress to explain his company's role in the situation.
Giving Back Through Philanthropy
Griffin has donated over $2 billion to many different causes. In 2023, he created Griffin Catalyst, an organization to manage all his charitable work.
Supporting Arts and Culture
Griffin has given large donations to many museums.
- He gave $19 million to the Art Institute of Chicago for a new courtyard.
- He donated $40 million to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
- He gave $125 million to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The museum was renamed the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in his honor.
Helping Education
Education is one of Griffin's biggest passions.
- In 2014, he gave $150 million to Harvard University for student financial aid. It was the largest single donation the school had ever received at the time.
- In 2023, Harvard renamed its graduate school the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences after he donated another $300 million.
- He bought a rare, original copy of the U.S. Constitution for $43.2 million. He plans to let it be displayed in museums for everyone to see.
- He has given millions to support math tutoring for students in Miami.
Donations for Science and Medicine
Griffin has also made huge contributions to medical research.
- He and entrepreneur David Geffen gave $400 million to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
- He gave $50 million to the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami.
- He donated another $50 million to the Baptist Health Miami Neuroscience Institute.
Political Views and Donations
Griffin is a Republican and believes in smaller government and free markets. He has said that wealthy people should be allowed to give as much money as they want to political campaigns, as long as the donations are made public.
He has given hundreds of millions of dollars to support Republican candidates and organizations. For example, he gave millions to support Marco Rubio's and Nikki Haley's presidential campaigns. He also spent over $50 million to oppose a proposed tax change in Illinois.
In 2021, he donated $5 million to Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis. He has said he would support DeSantis for president.
Personal Life
Griffin was married to Katherine Weingartt from 1991 to 1996. He later married Anne Dias-Griffin in 2003, and they had three children together. They divorced in 2015.
Amazing Art Collection
Griffin loves art and owns a collection worth nearly $800 million. He has bought some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.
- In 1999, he bought a painting by Paul Cézanne for a record $60 million.
- In 2015, he spent $500 million to buy two paintings in a single deal. One was Interchange by Willem de Kooning for $300 million, and the other was Number 17A by Jackson Pollock for $200 million.
- He also owns works by famous artists like Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Record-Breaking Homes
Griffin owns over $1 billion worth of homes around the world, including in New York, Florida, and London.
In 2019, he bought an apartment in New York City for $238 million. It covers four floors of a skyscraper overlooking Central Park. This set the record for the most expensive home ever sold in the United States.
See also
In Spanish: Kenneth C. Griffin para niños
- List of Harvard University people
