Bill Ackman

CEO & Founder, Pershing Square

Which Companies Bill Ackman Is Bullish and Bearish on Right Now

🎥 Jul 20, 2026 📺 Money News Network ⏱ 46m

Bill Ackman built one of the most closely watched hedge funds on Wall Street; when he speaks, markets move. Literally. Today, he ...

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About Bill Ackman

Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, has been active in several media appearances in mid-2026 discussing his investment strategy, market views, and the recent IPO of Pershing Square USA, a closed-end investment company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Ackman described the IPO as the largest closed-end IPO ever but expressed disappointment with its trading price. He stated that his firm's strategy is to construct a concentrated portfolio of durable growth companies and that he would have returned outside capital sooner to focus on a permanent capital structure, which he called a "huge advantage" for long-term investing. Ackman said he is bullish on large technology companies including Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, which he described as being perceived as "old-fashioned" by the market and therefore trading at attractive valuations. He expressed skepticism about the business models of some frontier AI model companies, stating he worries about "the Open AIs of the world" due to competition from open-source models. On geopolitical risks, Ackman said he believes the Iran conflict is "weeks as opposed to many months away from resolution" and that its resolution would lead to a "massive peace dividend." He also said the biggest risk to markets is the presence of "very levered players" vulnerable to an extrinsic shock.

Source: AI-verified profile updated from Bill Ackman's recent appearances. Browse all interviews →

Transcript (97 segments)

Nicole Lapen0:00

The key to being a successful long-term investor is being able to survive those kind of challenging market periods when everyone else is panicking. In fact, you want to have money to invest when others are panicking.

Bill Ackman doesn't just manage a portfolio. As the founder of Pershing Square, he has built one of the most closely watched hedge funds on Wall Street. When this guy tweets, he literally moves markets. Today, he tells me the biggest tip for investors.

Bill Ackman0:24

Invest in something that you believe will withstand the test of time. The value of a business is the present value of the cash it generates over its life.

Nicole Lapen0:32

The macroeconomic risks he's worried about.

Bill Ackman0:34

I think the biggest risk to markets is that there are a lot of very levered players in the market and we're at risk to some kind of extrinsic shock and that stocks to go down a lot.

Nicole Lapen0:43

And which company will win the AI race?

Bill Ackman0:45

Some people are afraid of AI. They think it's going to be very destructive to jobs and so on. I think it will be actually a big driver of economic growth, big driver of job growth, but you have to learn how to use the tools.

Nicole Lapen0:55

I'm Nicole Lapen, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab.

Bill Ackman, welcome to Money Rehab.

Bill Ackman1:12

Thanks for having me.

Nicole Lapen1:13

So, the economy feeling funky, but to be fair, it always feels a little bit funky. I don't think there's ever been a time it hasn't. What's your overall take on what's going on in the economy and markets right now?

Bill Ackman1:25

So I think it's unusual time in history. I think the big story is really AI. AI is driving an enormous amount of entrepreneurship. It's giving access to intelligence to a very broad group of people at very low cost. Google is basically free and then you have this massive infrastructure build in connection with AI. So you have some of the largest companies in the world competing to build the model for super intelligence and they need access to compute and data and we're seeing a land rush as people are literally acquiring land, building data centers, filling them with GPUs, memory, and enabling this technology that's transforming the world. I think it's going to have an enormous impact on all of us. Some people are afraid of AI, they think it's going to be very destructive to jobs and so on. I think it will be a big driver of economic growth, big driver of job growth, but you have to learn how to use the tools. But I think the big story is really AI. Yes, we have a war going on in Iran that I think will resolve itself. I don't think it's going to go on for years. I think it will resolve itself one way or another in a way that won't be too impactful in the US. And then I think you're seeing companies are actually doing quite well for the most part. But it is a bit of a bifurcated economy where some of the lower income people are challenged with inflation and that's a major concern. So it's not all roses, I would say.

Nicole Lapen2:53

It's definitely not, it never is. So with OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX all going public, who do you think the winner is going to be?

Bill Ackman3:01

Anthropic seems to be the leader in terms of frontier models and building a business that apparently turned profitable recently. That's pretty impressive. What concerns me about OpenAI is a prediction of very significant losses for the foreseeable future and also I think the open source models are getting so good and people will have access to either lower cost or free models that will enable them to answer most of the important questions or solve the problems that they need. So I'm less of a believer in betting on the frontier model company. SpaceX is a very interesting business. The Starlink franchise is enormously profitable and a near monopoly on global satellites. Their space franchise is incredible and they have an amazing position in terms of data infrastructure. If you want to rent 100,000 GPUs, about the only place you can do that today is SpaceX and they're earning very high returns on those assets. And then they have their own AI models. They launched a new one recently. So it's an incredible collection of assets run by the most talented technologist, entrepreneur of our generation. I think the only question is just price. At a trillion, whatever it is, six or seven, there's less upside than if you could buy for half that price. But I wouldn't, the word is never bet against Elon. So I think that SpaceX will be an incredibly important company over the next period of time. Now, it's not in the Pershing Square portfolio because it doesn't have the degree of predictability that we're looking for.

We like businesses that sort of today, if you think about a business, people think about stocks and bonds, right? Bonds, you get paid a coupon, an interest rate, a couple times a year. And if it's a fixed rate bond, you're going to get your six or 7% for sure. And at the end of the life of the bond, you're going to get your principal as long as it's a creditworthy company. A business is a bit like a bond as well except the coupon, the interest payment, is not known. You have to estimate what it's going to be. The way we think about companies is we think about the earnings as sort of the yield on the business. So people talk about PE, right? A stock trading at a PE of 20, well if you flip over the PE it's a 5% earnings yield. One way to think about it is you're investing in a company that's generating a 5% return on your investment today and the question is, is that 5% yield going to grow over time or is someone going to come up with a business that disrupts it and the company's going to disappear. So stocks are riskier than bonds because there isn't the same degree of certainty about their future. But if you narrow down the universe of companies you invest in to these really predictable businesses where their market position is, we believe, so dominant, you can earn well in excess of bond-like returns without taking a ton of risk.

Nicole Lapen5:51

So is the market too expensive right now?

Bill Ackman5:52

I would say in spots. I think it's hard to generalize about the market. People look at the stock market and they say, okay, today the PE might be 21 or something like this and the average PE of the market might be 17. So they can say on the margin it looks overvalued, but the value of a market is a function of what the earnings are going to be in the future and earnings have continued to significantly exceed expectations and earnings are growing at a faster rate than historically. A big percentage of the market is represented by the biggest companies and those companies, whether it's the Nvidias, the Microsofts, the Googles, the Alphabets of the world, are much higher quality businesses growing much more quickly than if you look back 20 years ago what the top six or seven companies were back then. So I think it's a higher quality collection of companies that deserves to trade at a higher multiple. And to my point, if Microsoft and Amazon and Meta are cheap stocks, which we believe they are, you could argue the market's not expensive at all.

Nicole Lapen6:57

So if somebody had a thousand bucks to invest right now, where should they put it?

Bill Ackman7:02

I would find a handful of businesses that don't use a lot of leverage. So you want companies that don't use a lot of financial leverage. They're businesses that you like and admire that make good decisions over time. And a business where you believe if the stock market were to shut for 10 years, you'd still be happy to own it 10 years from now. Don't invest in what seems to be most exciting now. Invest in something that you believe will withstand the test of time because the value of a business is the present value of the cash it generates over its life and you have to be able to predict it's going to be around a long time.

Nicole Lapen7:34

I'd love to see how that's reflected in Pershing's portfolio right now. You guys keep it to 12 to 15 investments. Why do you keep it so tight and what are you excited about right now?

Bill Ackman7:44

Sure. So our approach is to find what we believe to be the best businesses in the world. Businesses that will survive the test of time. Businesses that will survive the disruption of AI, will be beneficiaries at a minimum, will be either neutral or beneficiaries of AI. And so our portfolio is comprised in some cases of companies we've always wanted to own but weren't cheap until more recently. I put Amazon on that list, Meta on that list, Uber on that list, Microsoft. Businesses that we've always admired were always too expensive and a lot of money in the markets is flowing toward the new new thing, semiconductor stocks or memory, places where people have recently made money. And we focus on where we're going to earn a high compound return over the next three, four, five years. And that's enabled us to fill a portfolio with these very high quality, what we call durable compounders.

Nicole Lapen8:37

What's up with Brookfield though?

Bill Ackman8:38

Yeah, Brookfield really fits the model as well. We like companies that are not particularly capital intensive, that own and earn kind of royalty-like returns, or if they have a degree of capital intensity, they can earn very high returns on the money they invest. Brookfield's in the business of asset management. They're very good at it. Really private equity, real estate, infrastructure, a lot of the energy, power related businesses. And so as more and more capital is going in to build data centers, etc., that's a field where Brookfield is going to be a very successful participant, and they manage other people's money and earn a royalty and a fee on that capital, and that's a very good business.

Nicole Lapen9:17

I mean, there's years that you've delivered some crazy 50 plus percent returns, which is incredible. Hedge funds are out of reach for a lot of people. Of course, you created PSUS to democratize hedge fund access. Do you think more hedge funds should do that or is it too by nature risky and volatile for retail investors?

Bill Ackman9:35

It depends what you do. I think what we do is actually relatively low risk. We buy very high quality companies. We own them for the long term. We get pretty deeply involved in those companies and help them be successful. So we'll occasionally join boards, but we'll always have management's ear to the extent we have ideas that can help a business be successful. The vehicle we mentioned, PSUS, is a you could think of it as a hedge fund but it's one of the only publicly traded hedge funds. It happens to be available at this very moment at a very attractive price. So if you like Microsoft, let's see Microsoft right now is trading at, let's pull it up the ticker. Microsoft today is trading at $387. Well, if you want to buy it at $310, you just buy PSUS because PSUS is trading at a 22% discount to the value of its asset. So it's a publicly traded fund that trades in the stock market and it trades based on supply and demand for the shares in the short term. The assets we own are worth almost $50 a share and the stock's about a 22% discount to that price.

Nicole Lapen10:34

So you guys got it at a better price, but you got a ton of it, right? You recently bought two billion of Microsoft and then sold some Alphabet to free that up. Are you still bullish on Alphabet or are you just more bullish on Microsoft?

Bill Ackman10:46

Two things matter to us: business quality, long-term growth, durability, the overall quality of the business, and then the price. And we try to buy at a price that offers us a very attractive return over time. And occasionally, a business we own gets to a price where the go forward return is less than our threshold. And we sold Google not because we didn't think it was an amazing business, but rather because the price got to a level where we felt the go forward return was lower than what could be achieved by redeploying the capital into Microsoft.

Nicole Lapen11:13

What company now do you think is like Apple in the 80s?

Bill Ackman11:18

Apple has not been the most innovative company in the last decade. It's still an amazing business, but I don't even remember which iPhone I have. And I don't think it's materially better than the iPhone I had a few versions ago.

Nicole Lapen11:30

You don't have the newest iPhone, Bill?

Bill Ackman11:32

I believe I do, but is it iPhone 17? I don't even know which one it is, is my point. But the one I had before, actually a few iPhones ago, was better because the battery life was better than the one I have now. Some people were making the argument that this notion of walking around a phone, five or 10 years from now, you're not going to walk around the phone anymore. You're just going to be connected and you don't have to carry this device that you can lose or people can steal. You'll just have some, I don't know, a little pin on your shirt that will pick up all your questions.

Nicole Lapen12:04

Or maybe even in your brain.

Bill Ackman12:06

Yeah, actually it's an area that I've been spending some time on recently. There are a number of companies working on brain computer interfaces and it's going to be amazing for people with brain injuries and people who've lost vision and eventually I think it will be, I think you're right. I think you'll maybe wear a hat and the hat will be your connection to the internet.

Nicole Lapen12:28

Yeah. More like what is going to see the most exponential growth. People were complaining that a lot of these companies are staying private for a long time, but now we're seeing them go public. So if a new investor is listening, what's the best advice you would give to new investors?

Bill Ackman12:45

I think you get into trouble when you try to make money really quickly. So options and leverage and very speculative type businesses, when you start with a relatively small amount of capital. I remember when I had a few thousand dollars of investment capital, you want to make money quickly. I think one of the important things to understand is the power of compounding. Berkshire Hathaway stock was like $48 a share in the 1960s. You could become a millionaire investing with Warren just buying a share back then. But it didn't happen overnight. So the key is buying businesses that you believe will compound at a high rate over a long period of time. And the consumer often has insights before Wall Street. I mean Tesla was appreciated. The big shareholders were retail investors because institutions didn't understand how great Tesla was as a company, as a car. So look for those experiences, products in your life run by companies or built by companies that you admire and that's a good place to start.

And then read the annual report, see what they say about their business and then think about it. Is this a business that you believe can withstand competition? Or is it, my concern you asked me before about some of the AI companies, Anthropic has the lead now. At a certain point in time OpenAI was the leading company and then Google was the leading frontier model company. There are a lot of very talented people running private companies. I just saw a startup where they raised a couple hundred million dollars in their seed round at a $2 billion valuation and that was just an idea and their second round is going to be five billion and they're far from having a product or a service or a dollar of revenue. But there's an enormous amount of capital out there looking for the next Anthropic and so that's going to be a very competitive space.

Nicole Lapen15:49

But the frothiness that you mentioned with the startups and these crazy valuations, does that concern you? Do you think we're headed toward an AI crisis or are we in a bubble?

Bill Ackman15:59

By the way, this particular company which I looked at, the investors are probably the most sophisticated investors in AI companies with the most experience and they're the ones setting the valuations at such super high levels. I think in private markets there's more risk of valuations being massively above perhaps where they should be, but you're also seeing businesses that are able to go from zero. I mean, look at Anthropic. It went from zero to many tens of billions in revenue in a very short period of time. And this is a never-before-seen phenomenon. So if companies can scale that quickly, then you can justify much higher private market values.

Nicole Lapen16:42

Some of the money moves you made during 2008 made people wonder if you could possibly see the future, Bill. So if that is at all true, what are some of the opportunities you're predicting now?

Bill Ackman16:54

Seeing the future is very often just studying the present and looking for examples in history. In 2008, really before 2008, several years before 2008, we saw a number of companies doing stuff we thought was crazy. There were these businesses called bond insurers and they had AAA ratings, which means as good as the government in terms of creditworthiness, and they were guaranteeing very risky mortgages and collecting money and reporting big profits. We said this is not sustainable. And that was not so much predicting the future, but identifying something now that just seemed wrong. And we knew eventually that would blow up. In terms of predicting the future, markets are going to be volatile. There'll be some upcoming panic about markets. I don't know exactly what the catalyst is going to be. There is a ton of speculation. There's a huge amount of leverage being used by professional investors, by retail investors. My biggest piece of advice to your audience is don't borrow money against stocks because that's how you get wiped out. And betting on sports is not great unless you've got some real edge. I think a lot of the younger generation is wasting a lot of money betting on sports. Maybe it's fun, but don't bet money that you need to live on.

Nicole Lapen19:15

Because this is a very sexy thing people talk about online. They say rich people borrow against their assets instead of selling them.

Bill Ackman19:21

Rich people become a lot less rich when they do that sometimes. Carl Icahn very famously was very highly levered against his own stock and then the stock got crushed and he went from $20 billion net worth to three or four. So rich people can lose a lot of money using marginal leverage. I mean, if you can use marginal leverage if you use five cents against your dollar maybe you're okay. But if you use 30, 40 cents you start putting yourself in a risky position.

Nicole Lapen19:48

So it sounds like you're long-term bullish like Warren and just boring stuff.

Bill Ackman19:54

Maybe it's boring to you, but I don't think, maybe volatility is exciting to people. I like businesses where I know they're going to be here 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now. That's how you make a fortune over the long term.

Nicole Lapen20:08

I'm bullish on boring all the way. So aside from not borrowing against your portfolio, what's the worst advice you've heard from new investors?

Bill Ackman20:19

I don't like this trend of one day options. It's just gambling. No one knows whether a stock's going to go up or down over the course of a day unless you're trading on inside information. So it just seems like a crazy game.

Nicole Lapen20:30

So what do you think is the next crisis? Is there a next 2008?

Bill Ackman20:35

I think there are always things to worry about. One thing to worry about is we've been spending more money than we've been taking in as a government, as a country. So we've got a deficit and we've been financing that deficit by issuing Treasury bonds. And so we've got whatever 34 trillion of national debt. And we have to issue that debt at a time when lots of other companies that used to be buying it in their stock are now issuing a lot of debt and need more capital because of this massive AI infrastructure boom. So there's a huge demand for credit at a time when the government itself is also issuing more and more of its own bonds and the risk there is that all that supply needs to be absorbed by investors and that can cause rates to go up. So one risk to markets is rates going up. Another risk is you have a lot of very levered players in the market, which means that if there's some kind of event that comes from left field that shocks people and they panic and they sell, you could see a cascading as other sellers have to sell because they borrowed money. So I think the biggest risk to markets is that there are a lot of very levered players in the market and we're at risk to some kind of extrinsic shock and that stocks go down a lot. Now, if you have an unlevered portfolio with very high quality businesses and you don't need the money tomorrow, that's fine. A good opportunity for you to buy more. If you've got a margin debt, you're going to be in trouble.

to get wiped out or you're going to have to sell at the bottom, which is what you don't want to do. So, the key, going back to my hero, Mr. Buffett, his key was just longevity, right? He's 95 and he set up Berkshire Hathaway in a way that he would never get a harsh call or the equivalent so it could compound. Not every year, like you mentioned we've had a couple of really amazing years, probably a third of the time we've been up north of 30, 40% for the year, but we've had a handful of down years. This year we're down slightly, but that's okay. You don't need to make money every year. You just need to persist and own businesses that can compound at high rates and you wake up five years, 10 years from now and you'll have a lot of money. The other key for building wealth over time is spending less. And it's hard to do that, foregoing the short-term experience or pleasure, planning for the long term. That requires some restraint.

Nicole Lapen23:14

Well, that's why I think a lot of people are talking about a looming retirement crisis. And I know that you advocate for people without employer sponsored plans like 401ks to be able to get access to retirement savings options. I mean, usually the debate is centered around the fact that we move from defined benefit, so pensions that have gone by the way of the dodo bird or the blackberry, I suppose, to defined contribution plans like a 401k or an IRA. So, can you explain this like I'm 5 years old? What kind of plan actually fixes this problem?

Bill Ackman23:46

Yeah. So I think the issue for the country, which the president is taking steps to fix, is that about 60% of the workforce, their employer provides some kind of tax advantaged way to save money, typically a 401k plan, and the ideal one is where you have to opt out. So you're kind of forced in, or not pushed in, nudged in, to take 5% of your income, whatever the number, and invest it in a tax exempt plan that can grow over time and invest in the stock market. The biggest opportunity a young investor has is time. Because the power of compounding, your money multiplies over long periods of time, but you have to start early. And it's hard to start investing when you're young because this is time when you want to be buying things and close a house, paying rent, but setting aside the discipline to invest money and have it grow tax-free in a Roth IRA or one of these accounts is the most powerful way to save for your retirement. The problem is, I say 60% of the country workforce has these kind of programs. 40% you're an Uber driver maybe, a restaurant waitress, etc., and your company doesn't give you a 401k plan, you don't have an easy way to start saving for your future. And the president just made law where these kind of Trump savings accounts, very similar to what government employees had, where you can start with $1,000 of savings and then each year you contribute and invest the money in the market and it will grow over time. Wages have not grown at the same rate; wages grow at a much slower rate than stocks over a long period of time. And so it's very important that every American owns a piece of the stock market if you want to be in a good position by the time you retire.

Nicole Lapen25:43

Okay. So with that said, can we play a game called bullish or bearish?

Bill Ackman25:49

Okay.

Nicole Lapen25:50

Gold.

Bill Ackman25:50

No opinion.

Nicole Lapen25:50

You don't own gold.

Bill Ackman25:51

I don't. Well, I bought jewelry for my wife, so I guess the family owns some gold. I don't personally actually own any gold. I have a platinum engagement ring, but other than that, I have no metals to my name. I guess you could say this, my dad bought gold many, many years ago, probably in the 1970s, and held it. He said, 'I always want some percentage of my assets in gold.' It was not a very good investment. But when it reached a little over $4,000 maybe in the last period, I convinced mom to sell that gold that dad had put aside. It wasn't a huge amount of money, but I guess you could say I was not that... I'd rather own businesses that can compound in value than gold, but I like jewelry. So,

Nicole Lapen26:35

So you're bullish on buying your wife jewelry. That is a very, very good advice to all husbands out there, but not like GLD. You're not owning an ETF that tracks the price of gold.

Bill Ackman26:48

I don't really have a view. I don't know whether gold is going up or down. I just don't think of it as a great investment asset, even though it's done actually quite well. It's just not my thing. Problem is, it's an asset that's only worth what people tell you they're prepared to pay for it, and it doesn't pay you any yield in the meantime. Whereas every other asset that I invest in is one that generates some form of yield. It generates earnings or it pays a dividend or it's rent from a building. Whereas gold is just... I view it as a speculative asset. So I don't think of it as an investment. I think it's a speculation. Okay.

Nicole Lapen27:20

So you don't pay attention to...

Bill Ackman27:22

I like it. So you don't pay attention to silver or copper or anything. I sort of am aware of it. You know, copper, even gold, are inputs to various industrial processes that affect the cost of things. So I'm aware, but it's not something I'm betting on. Now if we were investing in a company where the cost of metal was an important input, I would be spending more time worrying about it.

Nicole Lapen27:45

Okay. What about what some people call digital gold, Bitcoin?

Bill Ackman27:49

You know, I don't own any Bitcoin. Again, it's very analogous, I would say, to gold. I think Mr. Satoshi is a genius. I'd like to believe that if I read the original paper and thought he was a genius and Bitcoin was 20 cents, I would have bought some. But I can't claim to have done that. Let's put it this way, out of admiration for the construct of Bitcoin, I think it's cool, but I don't know whether it's worth $50,000, $70,000, $5,000, or a trillion. I have no idea. The beauty of investing is you don't need to have an opinion or even knowledge about every investment class. You just have to know what you know and know what you don't know. I don't know Bitcoin. I don't know gold. So I don't touch either.

Nicole Lapen28:35

So, no crypto whatsoever.

Bill Ackman28:37

I've invested in some venture capital funds that invest in companies where blockchain crypto are part of their business model. So I'm intrigued technologically, but the speculating on various kinds of coins is not my thing.

Nicole Lapen28:54

How about Chipotle?

Bill Ackman28:55

You know, one of our more successful investments, we bought Chipotle at a time when it had a major food safety crisis and we helped recruit Brian Niccol to the company. He did an amazing job. Then Brian went to Starbucks and the next generation of talent has had a more challenging time with the company, but I think they're long-term well positioned. But I'm not particularly bullish or bearish on the current share price.

Nicole Lapen29:22

Okay. So, speaking of Brian, how about Starbucks? I think you've got an incredibly talented CEO running the company, but I feel like Starbucks pushed the price of their product at a pretty high rate over a very long period of time. And I don't know, the consumer... I don't think there's much room to increase price. I think the experience kind of deteriorated over time. I think Brian's trying to bring it back. Okay. How about T bills?

Bill Ackman29:49

You know, treasury bills are where you put your money if you need to keep your money safe. But I would again rather own really high quality companies for the long term than T-bills.

Nicole Lapen29:57

Okay, I think I'm going to get you on this one. How about Trump?

Bill Ackman30:01

I like the president and I think he's done a lot of things right. It's a job where it's very easy to criticize the person running the country, but I decided to support him relatively early on and I'm happy I did. I think he's vastly better than the alternative and I think he's done a lot of really good things. So I'm optimistic about the last couple of years of his term. I like a president who doesn't have to worry about getting reelected because I think they can make the right decision without regard to politics. So I'm bullish on his last two and a half years.

Nicole Lapen30:36

So, bullish it sounds like.

Bill Ackman30:39

Yeah.

Nicole Lapen30:39

All right. Mayor Adams bearish. I'm not a fan. Look, he's very smart, very charismatic, very good at politics, but I think the decisions he's making are very bad for New York. I think he's scaring away, discouraging. You saw the whole video, I'm sure, with Ken Griffin's apartment. Ken Griffin is a massive driver of New York City economic value, about to make a massive investment in New York City, and he has this major presence in Miami and now he's increasing the presence in Miami and diminishing the presence in New York. That's a disaster. I mean, all the various things that Mayor Adams wants to pay for require revenues from the likes of people like Ken Griffin. So if you scare away Ken Griffin, we discourage the Ken Griffins of the world from being in New York City. It's a disaster for New York. The mayor talked about balancing this year's budget, the highest budget ever, $125 billion budget for the city, and it wasn't balanced at all. He managed to get $8 billion from the state. He deferred pension payments. I just think there's enormous waste and fraud. I don't think the country or New York City has a revenue problem. New York City is spending way more per resident than probably any other city in the world and getting less for it. We have an efficiency and a waste problem. On the positive side, Mayor Adams started something like a DOGE-like savings effort. So hopefully that goes somewhere. But I don't think he's done a lot to help bring the city together. He recently came out with a map of all the various immigrant populations in New York and he left off Little Italy and put in a bunch of groups that I would say haven't been here nearly as long as the Italian population. It's just not a great way to build community in New York City. So he's what I was concerned about when he was running for office. Could he scare you out of New York?

Bill Ackman32:44

I guess potentially. I've got various reasons to be here. I have a daughter who's at a major medical event and I'm working on her recovery and her friends are all here. So I wouldn't pull her out of New York. That's my principle more than anything else. But it's not so hard to spend time... the winters in New York are not the best, right? So Miami starts to sound pretty appealing. And the more people that leave sophisticated towns like New York City, go to Miami, invest in the city, help build out the cultural infrastructure, etc., the more interesting a place like Miami becomes. And DeSantis has done a pretty amazing job running that state.

Nicole Lapen33:25

You have not been shy about any of your thoughts about this on Twitter in particular. And when you tweet, people listen. What does it feel like to have your posts move markets?

Bill Ackman33:36

You know what? I think it's pretty cool to push a button and send a message to two and a half million people. And I think on the margin, you can move opinion. And I think that's both a responsibility and an opportunity. I suffer from only being able to speak the truth. You may not like what I have to say, but I think I've been out there on a number of issues that everyone wanted to talk about but was afraid to. Whether it was the DEI or what was going on at university campuses or some of the post-October 7th stuff or anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism. We can make a list of various issues. It's great that one of the great things about our country is that you can say what you think. Now, a lot of people would like to say what they think, but their fear of losing a job or perhaps losing a friend discourages free speech. But I think the world's a better place if people share their views. And if you disagree with me, I read the comments. I read the best arguments against what I have to say. And I learn.

Nicole Lapen34:36

Does the heat get to you? Do you change your mind based on those comments?

Bill Ackman34:39

If someone convinces me I'm wrong, absolutely. And the environment at Pershing Square, we design an environment where people are strongly encouraged to push back, in particular against me, if they think I'm wrong. One of the best ways to advance at Pershing Square is to prove that I'm wrong and identify problems and risks early.

Nicole Lapen35:02

So you have no fear.

Bill Ackman35:03

I don't really have fear, but it's a crazy world, so it's important to stay safe.

Nicole Lapen35:13

Obviously, you're not happy with the status quo, especially in New York. There was some speculation that you would run for mayor. Is there truth to that? Would you run?

Bill Ackman35:20

Is it something I could do someday? I would say possibly, but I think I could achieve a lot more by helping a very talented person do that job, get elected and do that job, and then being otherwise helpful. We're about to announce a major New York City related project that I think will be very good for New York in the healthcare science area. So we're going to try to do our best to help New York City. I hope Mayor Adams can be a better mayor, but ideologically, I don't think socialism is the answer. The socialist and Marxist experiment has killed millions of people, literally killed millions of people. Now that's not to say that the points he makes about apartment affordability, rents, etc., he's entirely right. But the way to solve that problem, by freezing rents on half the renters, you're driving up rents on the other half. There are buildings in New York that are comprised of rent stabilized units and where those people got a two-year rent freeze and free market units where those people's rents had to go up in order for the landlord to cover their costs that have inflated because half his rent roll is fixed for the next two years. That seems like an entirely unfair system. And that kind of activity discourages development. The way you bring rents down is you increase the supply. And Mayor Adams is not doing really anything to increase the supply of new units. He's doing the opposite. He's discouraging. Developers are risk takers and they're the last dollar in, and they're not going to risk their capital unless they believe it's a friendly environment for landlords. And New York has become a very unfriendly environment for landlords.

Nicole Lapen37:16

Okay. So we'll keep an eye out to see if a Mayor Adams campaign comes out in the future. But for now, what are you watching for with the midterms?

Bill Ackman37:26

Obviously, this is a very important election. It will be more difficult for the president to get things done. Obviously, if House and Senate tip the other direction, that would be kind of a tragedy. Lindsey Graham passed away. I don't think his seat is at risk of switching, but he was a very important fixture in the Senate. I don't want to see the DSA continue to get more presence in the Congress. I think that's really, really bad for the country.

Nicole Lapen37:53

Zoom out. What generally are you hoping for the world that your children, your four daughters, will inherit?

Bill Ackman38:03

Love a world where everyone can live a happy life. Access to high quality healthcare, opportunity for a job where they can earn a reasonable living, have their own home, and advance their family so each generation can make progress versus the previous one. Love to have a world where we're not fighting a war in Europe or in the Middle East where 18, 20, 22 year old mostly men and some women are giving up their lives. The whole Russia-Ukraine war is a tragedy. Many, many thousands of Ukrainians have died and the Russian toll is significantly larger. These are... my nephew went to school with a young Russian guy that so far hasn't been conscripted into the Russian army, but it's a death. So I'd love a world without war and where AI creates this massive abundance. I think that's very possible. Love a world without discrimination. All the obvious things that people want. But I think there's a lot of misguided thinking about how we get to that world. And it's not with the ideology of AOC or Mayor Adams. The capitalist democratic system that built this country is an amazing system. It's imperfect, but it's one that people are advocating for. The road they're on, I think it's going to end up being a disaster.

Nicole Lapen39:40

Well, speaking of inheritance too, I'm a brand new mom of an 18-month old daughter. What's your strategy or how do you think about actual inheritance for your kids?

Bill Ackman39:50

You know, I think it's a super complicated thing. I feel fortunate in that my dad was a successful commercial mortgage broker. He made a very good living. There was a brief moment in my childhood where my dad was a bit nervous because he was a bit of an entrepreneur and didn't make money for a year or two and had dwindling savings, but generally lived the life of being financially secure. But he told me, 'Bill, you're never going to inherit anything from me. So you got to make it on your own.' And I think that was motivational for me. But I was always an entrepreneur. I've worked hard to create the opportunity for my kids to pursue whatever it is that they're passionate about. I probably don't want them to select something. Do I want my daughter to be a corporate lawyer so that she can make a living even if that's not what she really wants to do? So what matters to me is they find fulfilling, great careers. But on the margin, I want to help them be able to live in New York City if that's where they want to live. And today, to be able to live in New York City, as Mayor Adams is correct, it's become incredibly expensive unless you're a corporate lawyer or an investment banker or a really successful entrepreneur. And there's no guarantee that your child's going to be one of those things. So I'm going to help them.

Nicole Lapen41:04

So leave them enough to live but not too much so that they never have to work.

Bill Ackman41:10

I think you get a lot of gratification out of pursuing and building a career and being the best at whatever it is that you do. I don't think it matters that much what it is. But I do think having a career is important. But I would also say I think we've diminished moms in this generation in a way different from when my mom was raising us as kids. I think that's an incredibly worthy and important thing. You can manage being a mom and having a career, but I think it's okay if you just want to be a super mom that economically works for your family. And that's by the way not easy. Nobody thinks that's easy. And educating the next generation, where a lot of that education is coming from the experiences they have at home with a parent at home, makes a huge difference. I think it's incredibly important. I respect someone who's made the decision, 'I'm just going to devote the next 15 years to my kids.' I think that's an amazing thing if you can do it.

Nicole Lapen42:09

Yeah. And the worth of that, the child care, the cooking, the driving, all of that adds up. I know that firsthand. What have you found as the formula over the years that you think makes someone successful in whatever business they go into?

Bill Ackman42:23

I think what makes someone successful are really basic things. Showing up on time for work, going the extra mile, doing what you say you're going to do, underpromising and overdelivering. If you go to work in some industry, you study up so you become the expert in that industry more than your colleagues. You'll rise above and you'll be noticed. I remember when I took one of my first jobs in real estate, I went to the McGraw Hill bookstore on 50th and 6th Avenue and at lunch every day I would read books about real estate. That gave me an edge versus my peers and knowing stuff that other people took years of experience to learn. The amazing thing about AI is you can just have your AI teach you everything you need to know about a particular career and that kind of composition. So going the extra work, everything you need to know you can learn by reading, and today you can learn by your AI teaching you. So I don't think in my experience it's the person with the highest IQ that turns out to be the most successful person in business. It's usually the person who people like, people trust, who works harder, maybe a little more creative, never gives up. It's all of those life skill character things that matter. And you can have all of those things tomorrow, right? You can't choose to have a higher IQ, but you can choose to learn more about whatever your field is than anyone else by just doing the work. You can work harder. Being honest is just a decision. So all of the character qualities you need, you can have tomorrow. You just have to decide.

Nicole Lapen44:16

We end all of our episodes, Bill, by asking our guests for a final tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. You have a really popular lecture. I watched some of it again last night. Many say it's better than an MBA. It's 44 minutes. You talk about a lemonade stand and you teach people about business. If you could distill it, what's the most important part of that? It's 44 minutes. Maybe you could do it in four.

Bill Ackman44:40

One, start investing early. Put aside a little bit of money each month and invest it in the market. If you don't have time to pick stocks, invest in an index fund. If you have time to pick stocks, invest in a company that's dominant in its industry. It's the best company in its industry. A company that doesn't use a lot of financial leverage and a business that you believe will be a much bigger business 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now. And a business that's unlikely to be disrupted by a couple of women in a garage from Stanford University with some idea. And if you do that and you persist at that, you'll have a lot more money 10, 20, 30 years from now. The key is to have a long-term view. That's where you can have a competitive advantage because the vast majority of investors are very short-term and the long-term player can be the big winner. It's also much more tax efficient. The government for now only taxes you when you sell. So all of those gains that you build up over time compound without your having to share any of the profits with the government. And if you can open an IRA or a Trump account, a Trump savings account, then your money can compound tax-free over time, which is very important.

Nicole Lapen45:52

Yeah. Avoid paying taxes as much as you can. Believable.

Bill Ackman45:56

You're bearish on short-term capital gains, bullish on long-term capital gains. Yeah.