In addition to being the wealthiest guy in the Windy City, Ken Griffen has given more money to Chicago based charities than any other human. Congrats to Pritzker, Lightfoot and our Woke Brigade for chasing him out of town.
PS. I've listed some of his most notable charitable donations after the article below.
Chicago Loses a Business Citadel
Ken Griffin has had enough of the high-crime Windy City and moves his hedge fund to Miami.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ
June 23, 2022 6:44 pm ET
Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin is moving his company headquarters from Chicago to Miami.
The first step to recovery is supposed to be admitting you have a problem. But Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker still won’t, even after billionaire Ken Griffin on Thursday said he’s moving his Citadel hedge fund and securities trading firm to Miami from Chicago.
Mr. Griffin noted in a letter to employees that many workers had clamored to relocate to other offices, including Miami. They don’t merely want to escape Chicago’s winters. Many are literally running for their lives amid a crime surge that shows no signs of abating. Thefts so far this year in Chicago have increased 65% compared to last year.
“If people aren’t safe here, they’re not going to live here,” Mr. Griffin told the Journal in April. “I’ve had multiple colleagues mugged at gunpoint. I’ve had a colleague stabbed on the way to work. Countless issues of burglary. I mean, that’s a really difficult backdrop with which to draw talent to your city from.”
Meantime, Democrats in Springfield continue to threaten businesses and citizens with higher taxes, plus a referendum in November to enshrine collective-bargaining in the state Constitution that would also enshrine public-union rule.
It’s no wonder so many companies and people are leaving, and mostly to low-tax states. Caterpillar last week announced it is relocating its corporate headquarters from Deerfield to Irving, Texas, which has no income tax. Boeing is moving its headquarters to Arlington, Va., from Chicago.
In 2020, $2.4 billion in net adjusted gross income moved to Florida from Illinois, about $298,000 per tax filer. Illinois has lost about 60,000 black residents in the last decade, while Florida has gained 280,000.
Mr. Griffin has spent tens of millions of his personal fortune trying to rescue Illinois from bad progressive governance. Maybe he figures it’s time to cut his losses.
From the Chicago Suntimes:
In all, according to Citadel, Griffin has donated more than $600 million to educational, cultural, medical and civic organizations over the past 30 years.
Some of his donations:
May 2022 — $25 million to launch two academies at the University of Chicago that will provide six months of training to police leaders here and across the country and to people who run violence interruption groups.
June 2020 — Griffin donates $7.5 million to fund the first half of a four-year program providing free high-speed internet access to about 100,000 Chicago Public Schools students.
March 2020 — Griffin and partners in his financial companies donated $1 million to the Chicago Public Schools and $1.5 million to the Chicagoland Food Pantry to deliver breakfast and lunch to city kids at home while their schools are closed due to the pandemic.
October 2019 — The Museum of Science and Industry will now be called the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry after a donation of $125 million from the Chicago billionaire. It’s the largest single gift in the history of the museum, which opened in 1933.
April 2018 — A $10 million grant from Griffin underwrote the collaboration of the Chicago Police Department and the University of Chicago Crime Lab through 2019, with some of the money to go to an “innovation fund.” The money also helped improve services for officers, including training, stress management and mental health treatment.
December 2017 — The Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund donated $3 million to pave the way for construction of 50 miniature soccer fields across the city over the next five years. The announcement was at Gage Park as part of a nationwide campaign by the U.S. Soccer Foundation known as, “It’s Everyone’s Game.”
December 2016 — Griffin donates $12 million to complete a project that separates runners from cyclists along the entire 18-mile length of the lakefront trail.