Meet Bill Ackman, the controversial hedge-fund manager who made $2.6 billion off the coronavirus market crash in March

Reuters/ Allen Fredrickson

Ackman was raised in Chappaqua, the wealthy New York suburb of north of New York City, according to The Daily Mail. Chappaqua is also home to Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ben Stiller, and Vanessa Williams, according to The Daily Mail.

Ackman’s father, Lawrence Ackman, owned a commercial real-estate financing firm, according to The Minneapolis Star Tribune. His mother, Ronnie Posner Ackman, serves on the board of New York’s Lincoln Center, according to The New York Times.

Ackman earned an undergraduate degree and MBA from Harvard, according to Forbes. Shortly after graduating in 1992, Ackman founded a successful investment firm with a former classmate called Gotham Partners at age 26, The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. The firm was successful but Ackman decided to wind it down in 2002, citing a series of lawsuits.