(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Billionaire Ken Griffin is calling out Gov. J.B. Pritzker for not intervening in Chicago violence and is making some unflattering comparisons to the city where his hedge fund is headquartered, at least for now.
“Chicago is like Afghanistan — on a good day,” Griffin said Monday during a talk before the Economic Club of Chicago.
Griffin, who consistently is ranked the richest man in Illinois, suggested Citadel could relocate from Chicago because it’s getting harder to get people to live here. The hedge fund has 1,000 workers in New York and plans to open an office in Miami.
“It’s becoming ever more difficult to have this as our global headquarters — a city which has so much violence,” Griffin said.
Griffin said he was on the phone with Democrat Pritzker, a fellow billionaire, amid violent protests last year. He said he urged the governor to deploy the National Guard.
“He goes, ‘It won’t look good for there to be men and women on Michigan Avenue with assault weapons.’
“If that saves the life of a child, I don’t care,” Griffin added. “And he doesn’t care.”
Pritzker activated National Guard troops to lend support to Chicago police officers during some periods of unrest in 2020.
The governor’s press office offered a scathing response Monday that calls Griffin a “liar.”
“Ken Griffin is a liar. He lied to Congress last year and he is lying to Chicagoans now. Governor Pritzker is dedicated to the safety of this city and state, deployed the National Guard during the social unrest in the summer of 2020 and is making landmark investments in crime prevention,” the governor’s representatives said.
Griffin has backed Republican-aligned causes and was credited — or blamed — with helping to defeat the Pritzker-led effort to tax rich people at higher rates in Illinois.
“He’s not coming for just the rich — he’s coming for everybody,” Griffin said.
Related
