The largest landowner in Palm Beach, billionaire Ken Griffin, appears to have a love-hate relationship with the second-largest landowner, President Donald Trump.
While most corporate titans refrain from criticizing the president, Griffin is not averse to laying out his thoughts, even if they conflict with the president’s. Griffin’s 70-minute presentation Feb. 3 to the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches proved no exception.
Speaking of American power, exhibited when the U.S. military “extracted the leader of Venezuela from his own bed in the middle of the night,” Griffin suggested American might does not necessarily make America right.
“When you are as powerful as we are, it’s important to walk softly since you carry such a big stick. And now that the world has an appreciation of how big our stick is, they’re pretty damn worried,” Griffin told the sold-out crowd of nearly 800 at the Kravis Center’s Cohen Pavilion. “We want to be very thoughtful about when we use that big stick.”
But the world’s 34th-richest person found something to praise in Trump’s ability to make the nation take note of issues long ignored.
“I have to tell you, President Trump has an extraordinary ability to identify problems of consequence to the United States. I may not agree with his solutions, but I really do believe that he is very focused on issues that we as a country have swept under the rug for too many years.
“For example, closing the border with Mexico, absolutely, my opinion, phenomenal success story. And then there are issues that divide our nation, how we deal with illegal immigrants who have come here, the activities of ICE, which are really divisive issues.”
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Leaving Chicago for Miami
Griffin, 57, born in Daytona Beach, grew up in Boca Raton and graduated in 1985 from Boca Raton High School. In 2022, he moved his Chicago-based hedge fund, Citadel, and trading firm, Citadel Securities, to Miami after taking over the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach in 2020 to create a safe workspace during the COVID pandemic.
After the pandemic eased, his employees questioned why they came back to Chicago. A top employee told him most wanted to return south “because, to be clear, life’s a lot better in Florida.”
Since 2012, he has been buying Palm Beach mansions and tearing them down to assemble 27 acres at a cost topping $500 million, making him the town’s largest landowner. He plans a $1 billion estate and built a home for his mother, Catherine, who attended the Forum Club event.
Griffin, whose net worth is estimated at more than $50 billion, is one of the world’s most prolific philanthropists. Forbes puts his total giving at $2.4 billion. His name adorns the Norton Museum of Art. He made significant contributions to the Cox Science Center and Aquarium and the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach.
He and West Palm Beach’s dominant office developer and fellow billionaire Stephen Ross announced the night before the Forum Club event that they had launched a $10 million effort to promote South Florida as a business destination.
Griffin did not discuss the initiative at the Forum Club and not once, when explaining his company’s move to South Florida, did he mention the weather.
Instead, he blamed crime in Chicago.
“Let me tell you, the worst question I would get as a CEO, ‘Will my family be safe in Chicago?’ And I couldn’t say ‘Yes,’” he said.
It had nothing to do with lower taxes in Florida, he said. “You don’t uproot your life for 5% like, what, are you kidding me? I mean, if that was the case, New York City would be empty.”
“Crime is the one force that will truly break a person’s bond with their city. No one wants to live in fear. No one wants to say, ‘I’m going to take an Uber to go four blocks because I don’t feel safe walking outdoors.’”
In one year, he said, Miami reported about 28 murders, missing by just one. “In Chicago (which had 416 murders last year), we would almost hit that number in a weekend. The time I lived in Chicago, 25,000 people were killed.
“Now, you see, and I’m not trying to diminish this, you see the national uproar of what happened in Minnesota with ICE. It’s a horrible situation. Where is that national uproar over 25,000 dead people in Chicago?”
Immigrant work ethic
He praised America’s immigrant heritage and said he told the president the importance of allowing immigrants into the workforce.
“America’s ability to bring the best and brightest to our country to help run our companies has been a huge part of our success story, both for Citadel and for our economy writ large. People forget that the majority of tech companies in the Valley are either run by immigrants or children of immigrants. If you’re willing to give up everything in your life to come to this country for a better life, you have a work ethic, a drive and a risk-taking capacity that is really hard to find. And when America is the destination for talent from around the world, it makes all of our lives better.”
It’s important to put out the welcome mat for such immigrants, he said, prompting moderator Harvey Oyer, the Forum Club president, to point out, “The guy that controls that decision lives about four doors down from you.”
“I know he does, and I will say that in recent conversations with him, the importance of bringing the best and brightest from around the world is a message that American leaders have delivered in enough times that it’s really hitting home, and we need to stay on that talking point.”
He spoke about last month’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the effect of Trump’s speech allaying fears of a military takeover of Greenland and of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s call for mid-level powers to unite against economic coercion by great powers.
“It’s an important commentary because it does represent, in some case, the worst nightmare in the United States, which is that secondary powers will find both alliances amongst themselves and more closely align to the sphere of influence in China,” Griffin said. “So one of the real concerns the United States has to have is, ‘Are we pushing our allies closer to China?’”
While he criticized the president last fall for pressing Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to lower interest rates, he praised the president for his choice of Kevin Warsh to replace Powell.
“Kevin is a well-respected economist. He has very clear views of the role of the Fed. I think he is likely to be a great Fed chairman,” Griffin said. “And I think the president — the president whose attacks on the Fed were probably, frankly, not in the best interest of our country — you’ve got to give him credit, he picked somebody really good to run the Fed.”
The trouble with tariffs
In response to a question from the audience, he offered a three-part condemnation of tariffs, starting with the fact that they are a regressive tax, falling disproportionately on lower-wage earners.
“If you’re making $40,000 a year, you don’t have any savings, you’re gonna spend all of your money, and you’re gonna spend it on consumer goods that are disproportionately imported, and you’re paying the tariff,” he said.
They weaken American competitiveness, he said.
“Tariffs tend to shield American producers from international competition. That sounds good until you move forward 10 years later, where American businesses have become used to having that protective barrier.
“One of the reasons that American businesses have been so successful is American businesses sell so many goods and services around the world. We don’t want to lose that competitiveness.”
And, as he has before, he ripped a system that relies on who you know rather than what you know.
“How did you feel when you would see all the CEOs go to Washington asking for a break on tariffs for their input costs? It just made you sort of sick to your stomach because American businesses, by and large, like most CEOs I know, they want to win on the merits: ‘I make a better product. I make it a lower price. I found better marketing. I win.’ Not, ‘I’m able to ingratiate myself with one administration and then another better than you can.’”
Joel Engelhardt is a member of the Forum Club.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
