Ackman’s Olympus

Bill Ackman
Bill has always had a thing for Warren Buffett, as my faithful readers know. In fact, he seems to believe the current deal, if completed, would give him a leg up on his idol. Photo: Michael Bezjian/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
February 26, 2025

Last week, Bill Ackman, the audacious hedge fund billionaire and scourge of Ivy League presidents everywhere, jumped on X Spaces to share his revised plan to further his ambition of becoming Gen X’s own Warren Buffett. As I reported last month, Bill’s immediate goal is to turn the Howard Hughes Corporation—a modest real estate company, of which Bill and his Pershing Square affiliates own 37.6 percent—into his own financial growth vehicle, just as Buffett turned Berkshire Hathaway, once a downtrodden textile company, into his own investment holding company more than 50 years ago. Of course, the 58-year-old Ackman, who’s worth around $8 billion these days, has a ways to go to catch his idol, who is 94 years old and worth around $150 billion.