Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman endorses Trump following assassination attempt in Pennsylvania
Adam Jeffery/CNBC via Getty Images
- Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman endorsed Donald Trump for president on Saturday.
- Ackman's announcement on X came hours after an assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania.
- Ackman assured Biden supporters that he hadn't "lost it" and came to the decision carefully.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman has officially come out in support of former president Donald Trump's re-election campaign, following an assassination attempt at a Trump rally on Saturday.
"I am going to formally endorse @realDonaldTrump," Ackman wrote on X on Saturday night. "I came to this decision some time ago as many @X followers have already understood from my supportive posts of Trump and my criticisms of @POTUS Biden."
Ackman's endorsement came just hours after Trump was shot at during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. One spectator was killed, two more were critically injured, and the Secret Service fatally shot the shooter.
Video footage of the event shows Trump, clutching his bloody ear, and ducking for cover, before Secret Service rushed him off stage.
REBECCA DROKE/Getty Images
Ackman reiterated that his decision to support Trump was not a temporary lapse of judgement spurred by the sudden attack, but the product of careful reflection. He also said he believed the upcoming election will be one of the most consequential of his life.
"Today, when one announces an intention to support Trump, Biden supporters who know me tend to assume that I have lost it, he wrote. "I assure you that I have made this decision carefully, rationally, and by relying on as much empirical data as possible."
He also said he has recently spent several hours with Trump and had some firsthand observations to share.
Ackman said he has a much longer post in the works that will detail his reasons for backing Trump.
For now, Ackman defended his decision by taking aim at the mainstream media — which, he contended, hasn't covered Trump with objectivity.
"Remember, media organizations are like sports teams that run plays chosen by their owners and executed by the coaches they hire," Ackman wrote. "They are not unbiased arbiters of the truth."