Billionaires Zuckerberg And Ackman Take On Harvard’s Board—Endorsing Their Own Candidates Amid Election Interference Claims
TOPLINE
Billionaire Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman launched a campaign this week to replace members of Harvard’s board with their own picks, as the Ivy League’s leadership continues to face criticism following the resignation of one-year president Claudine Gay and a torrent of complaints over reports of antisemitism on campus.
KEY FACTS
Ackman, the billionaire founder of Pershing Square Capital Management who has harshly criticized Harvard leadership and called for Gay’s resignation, urged Harvard alumni to petition for four “alternative directors” to Harvard’s Board of Overseers in a post on X, lauding his picks as “phenomenal” and saying they “represent fresh blood and new perspectives.”
Ackman also accused the university of election interference, claiming the petitioning process that Harvard oversees for outside candidates not already endorsed by the Harvard Alumni Association “has become a labyrinth of complexity.”
Harvard’s Board of Overseers, a group of 30 alumni advisors that has the authority to approve senior appointments made by Harvard’s decision-making body, the Harvard Corporation, is open to non-faculty university alumni, though elections typically boil down to a group of eight candidates nominated by the Harvard Alumni Association.
All other candidates—including four endorsed by Ackman and one endorsed by Zuckerberg—need 3,238 alumni (1% of eligible voters in the previous board election) signatures to appear on the April 1 election ballot before the Jan. 31 deadline for petitions.
Zuckerberg, a Harvard dropout, endorsed Harvard alumnus and former Facebook executive Samuel Lessin, a candidate running on the platform of increasing transparency and using the board as a check on university leadership, as well as ousting Penny Pritzker, the head of Harvard’s decision-making body, the Harvard Corporation, the Harvard Crimson and CNN reported.
Ackman endorsed a quartet of candidates to the board (alumni Zoe Bedell, Logan Leslie, Julia Pollack and Alec Williams) as alternatives to the Alumni Association’s slate of candidates—those four alternative candidates were also endorsed by the anti-establishment group Renew Harvard, which states on its website it promotes “free speech and academic standards” and the restoration of “leadership excellence to Harvard.”
None of those five outside candidates were nominated by the Harvard Alumni Association when it released its list of eight candidates for five open seats on the board, which it chose based on candidates’ prior board and academic experience, their “broad interest in and concern for higher education” and the “ability to lead as well as to build consensus.”
Harvard did not immediately respond to Forbes’ inquiry on allegations of election interference.
TANGENT
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)—who gained national recognition for grilling Gay and the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at a tense congressional hearing on antisemitism last month—released a statement alleging Harvard of “inappropriately interfering” with the board election in an effort to “block candidates who are not self-selected by the current failed Harvard leadership.”Stefanik argued in her statement that Harvard “is not only arbitrarily moving the goalposts” of the election process, but “suppressing the vote by adding in unprecedented complex roadblocks to limit participation.”
KEY BACKGROUND
Gay announced her resignation earlier this month, following several months of criticism over Harvard’s response to complaints of mounting antisemitism in the wake of protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, as well as allegations of Gay’s plagiarism in her previous academic work. In a statement, Gay—the Ivy League’s first Black president—said she would resign “so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.” Gay has faced scathing complaints over the university’s handling of largely pro-Palestinian protests, with Ackman calling for her resignation and billionaire investor Len Blavatnik suspending his donations to the university. Lawmakers have also targeted Gay following a contentious congressional hearing last month on antisemitism, with a group of 74 House members from both parties calling on the university to fire Gay after she said that calls for the genocide of Jewish people could violate the school’s code of conduct “depending on the context.” Plagiarism allegations also sullied Gay’s final months at the helm of the university, including claims Gay plagiarized in her 1997 dissertation, with conservative scholar Carol Swain arguing Gay stole from her work without appropriate citation, as well as an article Gay wrote in 2001, according to a complaint filed to the university.
FORBES VALUATION
We estimate Ackman’s real-time net worth at roughly $4.2 billion, making him the world’s 707th richest person. Zuckerberg’s net worth stands at roughly $141.5 billion, according to Forbes’ estimates, making the Facebook founder the fifth richest person in the world.
FURTHER READING
Harvard President Claudine Gay Resigns Amid Plagiarism Allegations And Leadership Criticism (Forbes)
I am a Boston-based reporter. Before joining Forbes, I covered the environment, local government and the arts for a small-town newspaper on
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