Citadel CEO Ken Griffin Donates $3 Billion to Carnegie Mellon for Miami Campus

Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin announced a $3 billion donation to Carnegie Mellon University on Wednesday, the largest-ever individual gift to higher education, funding a new campus in Miami. The donation splits into $1 billion for CMU's Pittsburgh campus and $2 billion for the Miami campus, expected to open in Wynwood in 2028 with over 3,500 students. CMU's School of Computer Science will be renamed the Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science. The gift underscores Griffin's expanding bet on South Florida. Citadel, the hedge fund he founded, relocated its global headquarters from Chicago to Miami in 2022, and he has redirected resources from New York following a dispute with Mayor Zohran Mamdani over a proposed pied-à-terre tax. The donation surpasses Michael Bloomberg's $1.8 billion gift to Johns Hopkins in 2018.