Paul Yacoubian on X - "I’ve been following @BillAckman since 2012 across his many activist campaigns and I think shining a light on the derangement and corruption of our finest universities is undoubtedly one of the lowest risk, highest reward opportunities to improve America’s future. It’s one thing to say “oh colleges are worthless and won’t exist in the future” and another to say “you know what, we should expect greatness and if they won’t oversee themselves in a prudent way, maybe I can do something to help”. This is an incredible opportunity to catalyze much needed and long overdue change. These institutions can be great again. And young people absolutely need to have the ability to get valuable first principles education from people who have achieved. And we owe it to them to ensure they get their money’s worth and that the product is truly world-class. Plagiarism is long hanging fruit evidence. I suspect there is an equivalent of the Twitter files to be uncovered in email records. Bill, don’t stop. Transparency is the best disinfectant."
Bill Ackman on X - "My wife, @NeriOxman , was just contacted by Business Insider claiming that they have identified other plagiarism in her work including 15 examples in her dissertation where she did not cite Wikipedia as a source. Business Insider told us that they are publishing their story this evening. As a result, we don't have time to research their claims prior to publication. It is unfortunate that my actions to address problems in higher education have led to these attacks on my family. This experience has inspired me to save all news organizations from the trouble of doing plagiarism reviews. We will begin with a review of the work of all current @MIT faculty members, President Kornbluth, other officers of the Corporation, and its board members for plagiarism. We will be using MIT's own plagiarism standards which can be found here: https://integrity.mit.edu/handbook/what-plagiarism We will share our findings in the public domain as they are completed in the spirit of transparency."
Melissa Chen on X - "Let’s fuckin’ go!!!!! π π π I saw MIT slowly give in to woke nonsense. It was still fine when I was there in 2014. Slowly but surely it got corrupted.. The way they dealt with Prof. Dorian Abbot and Prof. David Sabitini respectively was when I lost all hope"
Bill Ackman on X - "Ms. Long of Business Insider did not send anything to me. Fran McGill, who heads communications for us, received an email from Ms. Long at 5:19pm which he brought to my attention when he tracked me down around 20 minutes later. The email was about 12 pages long. Ms. Long said in the email that BI would be publishing its story this evening. They did so at 7:15pm. Note that they chose to send the email after sundown on Friday night to a family that celebrates Shabbat dinner together. And also note that they are attacking the Israeli wife of the protagonist in this situation. Think about that and think about why they chose to wait until 5:19pm. Now also consider why is it that Business Insider published this story. Probably because other news sources turned it down. Who picks BI for a “scoop” in any case? Also, how can one check whether Wikipedia was used as a source for anything? Wikipedia changes minute by minute. The authors are unknown. Is it even copyrighted material? How do we know that Wikipedia didn’t plagiarize from someone else? Who is accountable for accuracy at Wikipedia? Who are the authors? Does Business Insider strike you as a first class source of news trying to get to the truth, or is it a gun for anyone’s hire. What do you think?"
Bill Ackman on X - "Not only did Ms. Long not contact me. I have never spoken to her in my life. How can she be paraphrasing something I said if she never spoke to me? Clearly, she had already written her article prior to contacting Fran, our head of communications at 5:19pm when she told him they would be publishing shortly this evening, which they did around 7:10pm. The only ‘blasting’ here was Business Insider and their so-called journalists trying to destroy other people’s reputations. Who would advertise on such a site? Who would work at BI? This is the worst form of so-called journalism. I predict that Business Insider will go bankrupt and be liquidated. It is just a matter of time."
Bill Ackman on X - "A few questions: How can one defend oneself against an accusation of plagiarizing Wikipedia for a dissertation written 15 years ago in 2009? Isn’t the whole point of Wikipedia that it is a dynamic source of info that changes minute by minute based on edits and contributions from around the globe? Has anyone (other than my wife) ever been accused of plagiarism based on using Wikipedia for a definition of a word? Is Wikipedia copyrighted? If so which version? The most recent one? The previous version? Is it plagiarism when you use an online dictionary for a definition of a word or term? How can one defend oneself when one learns about a 12-page plagiarism accusation at 540pm on Friday night when one celebrates Shabbat and you are told the article would be published shortly, in this case at 7:10pm?"
Wilfred Reilly on X - "I'll just say the obvious: 10% of...everyone's writing is going to turn up as "slightly paraphrased definitions from Britannica and Wikipedia." Why? Because those are the literal fuc*ing definitions."
Bill Ackman on X - "It has been the case since as far as I can remember in business and in media that family was off limits, unless of course the family is directly involved in the business. The code of the road was that you can attack the protagonist as much as you want, but not his wife and not his kids. The same is true in business dealings. You never go after someone’s family to get at a business person. This is a sacred code that I have never seen violated. Business Insider broke this sacred code on Thursday and again on Friday when they went after my wife, @NeriOxman . And they are working on another story about her. They are calling her former students as we speak. Inspired by the code being broken, a journalist from Bloomberg reached out to my kids on their cell phones this weekend for a story she is working on. The reporter’s name is Kathy Burton. I had respected her until now. Do we want to live in a world where journalists go after your life partner and your kids? In that world, one would respond to an attack on one’s wife and family by going after the owner of the media company and his wife and family. Ask yourself, who would want to advertise on a media property where they go after people’s families? No one. Because eventually they will go after your family. The Editor of the Investigative group of Business Insider who is leading the attack on my wife is John Cook. He is a known anti-Zionist. My wife is Israeli. That might explain why he was willing to lead this attack and others turned down the source when they were looking for a media outlet. How would John feel if someone went after his life partner and kids? How would Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall feel if it was their wives and kids rather than mine? How would Henry Kravis and George Roberts react to this experience? How would Mike Bloomberg? We need to decide what kind of world we want to live in. I want to know the answer to that question today because it is a really important question, and it affects society at large and our future."
Peter Boghossian on X - "In the course of one of my inquisitions, l learned that a DEI bureaucrat was asking my current and former students if they knew anything about me beating my wife and family. This is what they do. This is who they are."
Billboard Chris π¨π¦πΊπΈ on X - "It amazes me how moderate Democrats are just now learning about the tactics of the Left. Going after family members is nothing new. One of the first things these child-abusing radical leftist losers did when I started campaigning was try to get my wife fired. I’m glad Bill Ackman is becoming aware. Hopefully he puts his resources to use and fights back."
Melissa Chen on X - "“We got here because of cowardice. We get out because of courage.” said @bariweiss, about the “woke revolution” that ushered in moral myopia under the guise of DEI. @BillAckman’s courage has led to real victories. The DEI regime can be challenged and torn down. Keep at it!"
Yellow Lab Life Capital on X - "Bill Ackman has never been more relatable than this “You brought my wife into this and now I shall burn MIT’s faculty to the fucking ground” “The husbands of America should take notes” - Mrs. Koala"
Bill Ackman on X - "Last night, no one at @MIT had a good night’s sleep. Yesterday evening, shortly after I posted that we were launching a plagiarism review of all current MIT faculty, President Kornbluth, members of MIT’s administration, and its board, I am sure that an audible collective gasp could be heard around the campus. Why? Well, every faculty member knows that once their work is targeted by AI, they will be outed. No body of written work in academia can survive the power of AI searching for missing quotation marks, failures to paraphrase appropriately, and/or the failure to properly credit the work of others. But it wasn’t just the MIT faculty that did not sleep last night. The @Harvard faculty, its governing board members, and its administrative leadership did not sleep either. Because why would we stop at MIT? Don’t we have to do a deep dive into academic integrity at Harvard as well? What about Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Penn, Dartmouth? You get the point. While we are going to do a detailed review of plagiarism at MIT, we are not going to be the only ones who do so... Consider the inherently irreconcilable conflicts of interest. Would you trust today’s university president to do an examination of their faculty? What are the chances that the reviews would be weaponized to go after faculty members whose politics were not favored by leadership? We have seen this before with other tools used by university presidents and their deans. Consider the weaponization of MeToo accusations, speech codes, and the other tactics of cancellation that have destroyed free speech on campus, and many faculty members’ reputations, careers, and their families. By analogy, who would trust even our most credible corporations with auditing their own financial statements? There is a reason why all public companies have independent auditors who are carefully examined by regulators to ensure they maintain quality, standards, accuracy, and independence. And what if a plagiarism review turned into an incredible embarrassment for the entire university? It could lead to wholesale firings of faculty. Donors terminating their donations. Federal funding being withdrawn, and a massive litigious conflagration where faculty members and universities sue one another about what is plagiarism, and what is not. Think about the inevitable destruction of the reputations of thousands of faculty members as it rolls out around the country, and perhaps the world. And maybe that’s a good thing... The HES can affect what’s taught to toddlers and what is taught in elementary and high schools, as ed schools train the next generation of teachers and superintendents, and design the curricula they teach. The HES can convince a generation that some of us are oppressors, and others are the oppressed, and provide justifications for what kinds and what degree of violence and terrorism are appropriate tools to address this perceived oppression. The HES can affect our medical establishments and the ethics of medicine, e.g., some of our most controversial procedures and medicines, and the advisability of their use on children, and so on. You get the point, I am sure. The HES affects our legal system, our ethics, and our basic understanding of right and wrong. It affects how we think about capitalism and our economic system, and how we address wealth inequality, taxation, monetary and fiscal policy, and consider universal basic income and other alternatives. It also affects religion and how it is practiced and no longer practiced around the country. It can advance a monetary theory which states that the U.S. as a sovereign nation has effectively no limit to its spending because it can just print new money without any consequences or loss of solvency. And then, of course, the graduates of our education system over time become the judges, the Supreme Court justices, the politicians, the members of the media, and the other people that influence and determine our way of life, and help us understand the truth, but whose truth? you might ask. The HES influences how our national voting system should be administered; the standards for eligibility to run for office; how the primary system works, and what it takes to qualify to be on a ballot in a state... Over the last few weeks and months, I have literally received hundreds of emails, texts, hand- and type-written letters and cards, and phone calls of support (and 10s if not 100s of 1000s of posts and replies on X) – from friends and strangers, alumni, faculty and students, senior leaders of foreign countries, U.S. senators and members of congress, high profile members of the media, and several presidential candidates – for my efforts to help address the problems at Harvard, MIT, Penn and the higher education system at large. All of that said, most have been pessimistic about the opportunity for necessary change, as nearly everyone believes that it will take decades to fix the problem because of the life tenure system for faculty... The weaponization of AI for plagiarism has become the tactical nuke of the U.S. higher education system. That is potentially good news as the more I have learned about the HES, the clearer it has become that tactical devices and other powerful weapons may be required to win this war... I do believe that intent matters with plagiarism as it does in the securities laws... So far, I have only been accused of racism against Black people as a result of my advocacy for all three stepping down from their roles. I have not yet been accused of misogyny as far as I am aware. I have been ecumenical and color blind in my advocacy here. Please also note my post last night about why I believe the Chairman of MIT must resign for apparent tax fraud. I note that he happens to be a Jewish man. Am I am also an antisemite?"
This was even longer than the previous longest tweet I'd ever seen (also by him)
Bill Ackman on X - "The reporter told Fran that she was going to publish her story shortly thereafter that evening so it was clear to the reporter and to us that we would not have time to respond. In one of my previous posts, I got some of the timing slightly wrong. It was worse than I thought. Fran received her email at 5:19pm. He found me and Neri about 10 minutes later. A few minutes after Neri and I began to read the 12-page email, we realized that there was no way we could investigate the plagiarism allegations in an hour or two, let alone days without access to all of the underlying documents and a careful review of the relevant papers and sources. As you know, plagiarism allegations are no joke and often take months to adjudicate. With no possibility of responding in time, I posted at 6:01pm that we would launch a review of @MIT ’s faculty. I am sure you remember that post. At 6:51pm (I had originally thought it was 7:10pm or 7:15pm), Business Insider posted their story, one hour and 32 minutes after the reporter’s 12-page email was sent. Reporters don’t like it when you respond to their stories publicly before they are released. I have never done so before. However, this circumstance was so incredibly egregious, I felt that I had no choice. A reporter was attacking my wife yet again, a woman who is totally uninvolved in my advocacy on higher education, but they thought attacking my family would cause me more pain. Even the mafia operates with more dignity and respect for family, and I apologize to the mafia for the comparison. Business Insider gave us no time to respond, and acted with actual malice and bad faith. For further info, please review her posts where she alleged that she had spoken to me and was trying to help me understand the BI plagiarism allegations. I have never spoken to this person and never will. I have addressed her false statements in two responses to her posts. I encourage you to read them if you care to learn more. Earlier today, Neri heard that Business Insider is now calling her former students for whatever story it is working on now. You might ask yourself: Why is Business Insider reviewing and attacking Neri Oxman’s life and career? In my 36-year career, I have never had the experience of a journalist and their employer attacking the life partner of a subject of any story, even a big one. Even Herbalife and the journalists that covered that escapade chose to stay away from attacking my family. Perhaps I am just lucky or perhaps Business Insider is a disgusting and unethical journalistic operation. I had forgotten Axel Springer had acquired Business Insider. Axel Springer is now controlled by KKR. I am therefore incredibly shocked by the conduct of a company controlled by KKR, a firm that I have had enormous respect for over the years. I hope they have no idea what is going on in their Business Insider subsidiary, but I am going to look into it. My best guess is that the incentives for management of BI are designed poorly, or as I have been told, the Editor of Business Insider’s Investigative Division has an agenda that he is pursuing against my wife or something else is going on. I would greatly appreciate if the X community can help figure this out. Other journalists sadly are playing the same game. They call OXMAN for comment, which as a start up in stealth mode doesn’t have a communications person, and the office manager takes a message. The message is then passed to Neri who is, of course, focused on her work. By the time Neri has a chance to field the inquiry, the story is already published in most cases, literally minutes later. This has to stop. Last night, a reporter at Bloomberg, let’s call her Kathy, left messages on my kids’ cell phones that she was writing a story on me and asking them to call back so they could answer her questions. I am an enormous fan of the Bloomberg company. I advocated for Mike Bloomberg for president such is the respect I have for him. I know this reporter and I can’t believe that she called my children on their cell phones. Kathy, WTF is going on? Lastly, if X was not independently controlled and governed by a free speech absolutist, Neri and I would not have had the ability to respond in a rapid fashion in a public forum where free speech is allowed, encouraged, and respected. I would also not have had the ability to reach millions of people with what I believe are important messages. And I would not have been able to be nearly as effective in my campaign to help save the higher education system in our country, and I represent just one of hundreds of millions of grateful users. So thank you @elonmusk !!! and thank you @lindayaX for holding strong. I am going to stop here even though I have a lot more to say. The good news is that you don’t run out of ink on X. I am grateful for your taking the time to read this missive if you have made it this far, but don’t worry I am sure I will have an excuse to write again."
Karol Markowicz on X - "You dared take a position against the left. That's it. That's all it takes. It's a cultural revolution and dissenters will be punished. There are no rules."
This is also why the left hate Elon Musk so much for buying Twitter and allowing free speech, since it threatens their agenda
α΄α΄α΄
Ι’α΄Κα΄
π on X - "In case people don’t know what Bill Ackman does, he isn’t just a hedge fund manager. He’s an activist investor. Which means he buys massive shares of companies to gain enough influence so they have to do exactly what he says. He often fires their executive team and runs the place as he sees fit. Given he just left Harvard with a black eye — he probably isn’t the kind of man you want to fuck with, particularly with his wife. These people are retarded."
Andrew Ruiz on X - "He’s also the kind of guy who spends hours looking at spreadsheets due to the nature of his work. Real mind-numbing tedious work unless you enjoy it. Sort of like checking for plagiarism. So by the looks of it, it looks like they just gave him a brand new hobby lol."
Meme - Robert Sterling @RobertMSterling: "Going after @BillAckman ’s wife is one of the dumbest moves I’ve ever seen. MIT and Business Insider don’t understand the force of nature that’s about to come after them. This guy literally beat out Brad Pitt competing for his wife. While you were losing sleep over not having toilet paper during Covid, he was making $2.6B shorting the entire economy. The dude is just built different. Ackman is righteously pissed off. He’s motivated. He’s rich af, and he’s got some of the best research analysts in the world working for him (I worked in military intelligence, and DOD/IC analysts don’t come close to Wall Street short-sellers when it comes to autistically meticulous research). You think Gen Z clickbait journalists and MIT deans more comfortable in chemistry labs than in tense board-room proxy fights are ready for a guy like this once he gets on the war path? Yeah, right. *Ackman as Roman soldier*"
Gummi Bear on X - "The hit job on @BillAckman suddenly makes sense @johnjcook, Gawker ’s former editor, is the exec editor at Insider Beyond his role in the disasterous Hulk Hogan scandal/lawsuit, he’s also long been considered an anti-zionist Some people never learn…"
Billionaire Ackman Slams Business Insider Over Plagiarism Reports, And Musk Suggests Lawsuit - "Axel Springer issued a statement saying the “facts of the reports have not been disputed” but that the company has received concerns about the “motivation and the process leading up to the reporting.”"
Weird. I thought the liberal rule was now that bad faith attacks meant allegations couldn't be true. But of course that only applies to their side
Notably, Oxman quickly apologised for missing quotations marks and will submit corrections and no one pretended this was anti-Semitism or misogyny. This is very different from what happened with Gay
Yehuda Teitelbaum on X - "Just 56 more cases of plagiarism and say that calling for the genocide of Jews depends on the context and you guys will be even. I'll leave it to the scholars to figure out the severity of this but it smells like a witch hunt."
Harvard, Claudine Gay and the Education of Bill Ackman - WSJ - "“I think diversity, equity, inclusion are wonderful things, OK?” Mr. Ackman says. “Small ‘d,’ small ‘e,’ small ‘i.’ But when you capitalize them in turning into a movement, the way that it’s applied at places like Harvard, it’s not about true diversity, equity and inclusion.” He concedes that “it takes, frankly, a little bit of study to understand this. I’m not up on campus. I didn’t understand the details, the implementation, and the philosophical backdrop.” He likens DEI to ESG—environmental, social and governance, self-righteous nostrums by which many corporations abide. “Well-intentioned movements like ESG can have catastrophic consequences for the world. Europe’s loss of energy independence was a contributing factor in Putin having the confidence to invade Ukraine.”... One is tempted to say the attack on Ms. Oxman backfired. But while it only emboldened her husband, it may intimidate other would-be critics from joining the public fray. Friends ask Mr. Ackman how he has so much time for social media. “ ‘What about your day job?’ they say. And my answer is, my big posts are at night, on weekends, or on vacation like last week.” He sees his efforts against DEI as a public service—and good for business. “We have $18 billion invested for the long term in our country’s best companies,” he says. “The good news is my business interests and my patriotic interests are perfectly aligned.”"
