Bill Ackman at CNBC’s Delivering Alpha conference on September 28, 2023.
CNBC
Bill Ackman says he never compiled a “no-hire list” of anti-Israel Harvard students.He spent weeks calling for Harvard to reveal the names of students who signed an anti-Israel letter.Ackman now says he was simply indicating he did not want to hire people who signed such a letter.
Last month, billionaire Bill Ackman called for Harvard to release the names of Harvard students who signed a letter blaming Israel for the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas. His explanation? So that he and other business leaders wouldn’t hire them.
Now, he says, he “never compiled a no-hire list.”
Ackman, who is a Harvard alumnus, was responding on Thursday to a tweet by journalist Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald wrote that he’d interviewed two students “put on a no-hire list compiled” by Ackman.
The pair of Harvard students told Greenwald that they were part of a student organization that signed the anti-Israel letter, which wrote that it held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
Greenwald’s interviewees said they were caught in the subsequent backlash championed by Ackman and other CEOs, and that their names appeared on a website calling them pro-terrorist. Their faces also appeared on a truck accusing them of antisemitism, they said.
In response, Ackman tweeted that he has neither created a no-hire list nor been involved with any such trucks.
“Rather, I simply posted that the students who support the statement that Israel is ‘solely responsible’ for the evil and barbaric acts of Hamas are not individuals that I would like to hire for any company in which we are involved,” he wrote on X.
“To put it simply, I don’t want any supporters of terrorism in our company,” he added.
The hedge fund manager has repeatedly said he supports Palestinian rights but condemns Hamas, the militant group that runs the Gaza Strip.
“It is unfortunate that certain students and others cannot distinguish between support for Palestinians and support for Hamas,” he wrote in his Thursday tweet to Greenwald.
Meanwhile, Greenwald defended his own tweet about Ackman on Thursday.
“Everything I said is true: 1) I didn’t say he had anything to do with the truck. 2) He repeatedly called for a list of names of students not to be hired,” Greenwald wrote, before publicly inviting Ackman onto his podcast to talk about his beliefs.
A representative for Ackman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.
Ackman frequently reposts tweets on antisemitism and statements by the State of Israel’s official X account, but said on October 29 that he has been “pro-Palestinian” for decades.
“I am anti-terrorist, not anti-Palestinian,” he wrote. “It is not inconsistent to be pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian.”
Ackman has expanded his criticism beyond Harvard students, and has in recent weeks blasted Harvard University, accusing the institution of neglecting to combat antisemitism on campus.
In a November 4 letter to Harvard President Claudine Gay, he advocated for suspensions and disciplinary action against students who held pro-Palestinian actions that he felt were antisemitic.