Bill Ackman Backs Harvard Losing Tax-Exempt Status, Calls for Board Overhaul

He's 100% right. Time to drain the educational swamp.

Bill Ackman Backs Harvard Losing Tax-Exempt Status, Calls for Board Overhaul

The billionaire investor says it’s time for a change in leadership at the Ivy League school

By Nicholas Hatcher, WSJ

Updated May 5, 2025 1:58 pm ET

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman criticized Harvard University for becoming “a political advocacy organization” in a CNBC interview. Photo: Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg News

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Bill Ackman said it would be fair for Harvard to lose its tax-exempt status, but doesn’t think it will happen.

Ackman criticized Harvard Corporation’s leadership, including senior fellow Penny Pritzker, and called for a change in leadership.

President Trump has threatened to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status, prompting condemnation from Harvard President Alan Garber.

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman said it would be fair for Harvard University to lose its tax-exempt status, but he doesn’t think it will come to that.

“Harvard became, over time, a political advocacy organization for one party,” Ackman, a conservative, said Monday on CNBC. “When a university goes from being a university to becoming a political advocacy organization, it doesn’t deserve nonprofit status.”

Ackman, who is an alum of the school, said he doesn’t believe Harvard will lose its tax exemption. “I want Harvard to succeed,” he said.

He criticized Harvard Corporation’s leadership, including senior fellow Penny Pritzker. “It’s time for a change in leadership in the board at Harvard,” Ackman said.

President Trump renewed his threat to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status on Friday, saying in a Truth Social post, “It’s what they deserve!” An administration official said the president’s post wasn’t a formal directive to the Internal Revenue Service to take action.

The threat prompted condemnation from Harvard President Alan Garber, who called the move “highly illegal” and “destructive to Harvard.”

“Tax exempt status is granted to educational institutions to enable them to successfully carry out their mission of education and, for research universities, of research,” Garber told The Wall Street Journal on Friday. “Obviously that would be severely impaired if we were to lose our tax exempt status.”

Harvard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday on Ackman’s interview.

The Trump administration earlier this spring said it was pausing billions of dollars in federal grants and funds to Harvard over antisemitism concerns. The university filed a lawsuit last month against the Trump administration, setting up a legal showdown between America’s most prominent university and the White House.

The suit argues the government has violated the university’s constitutional rights by freezing billions of dollars in federal funding and imperiling its academic independence.

Ackman, who endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, said Harvard should have struck a deal with the president rather than file a lawsuit challenging the withholding of federal funds.

After Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war, tensions grew on campuses. Universities erupted in demonstrations over the growing number of Palestinian civilian casualties.

Ackman and other prominent donors criticized schools for not condemning Hamas and better protecting Jewish students.

Harvard President Alan Garber responded to President Trump’s threat to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, saying doing so would be ‘highly illegal’ and ‘destructive.’ Photo: Adam Falk/The Wall Street Journal

Ackman pressured Harvard’s board to push out the university’s president, Claudine Gay, for not responding with enough urgency to antisemitism concerns. Gay ultimately stepped down.

On Monday, he said Harvard “shouldn’t be a place that is allowing pro-terrorist organizations on campus,” referring to the pro-Palestinian protests.

In late 2023, Ackman also criticized the school for years earlier selling $10 million in shares he had gifted it in an unusual donation agreement.

Last week, Harvard University released a report that depicted a divided campus where students on both sides of the Middle East conflict felt unsafe in the months after the Hamas attacks. One faculty member quoted in the report cautioned: “I’ve never seen this university so polarized. There’s a fear that divisions at this university could be existential if unaddressed.”