Billionaire Investors Hilariously Tussle Over Who's More Moral
Billionaire hedge fund mogul Bill Ackman (pictured) is in a tiff with billionaire Bershire Hathaway investment mogul Charlie Munger. The topic? Whose investments are more “moral.” Now that’s what I call comedy!
Ackman (net worth: $2.6 billion), one of the most famous hedge funders in the world and a big fucking crybaby, is the head of Pershing Square Capital. His fund is a major owner of Valeant Pharmaceuticals, a company currently mired in controversy over, among other things, it’s practice of jacking up the prices of certain necessary drugs. Charlie Munger (net worth: $1.3 billion) is Warren Buffett’s top sidekick at Berkshire Hathaway—a legendary investor in his own right who has played a large role in building a monster $333 billion corporate conglomerate.
In other words, these are two of America’s leading ethicists.
Recently, Munger said that Valeant as a business is “deeply immoral,” implying that Ackman himself is immoral for owning such a large stake in it. This morning, Ackman struck back, saying in an interview that Munger and Berkshire Hathaway have no room to talk about morals—they’re one of the biggest owners of the Coca-Cola corporation! Evil diabetes-causing sugar water! But hey—Ackman’s own firm owns a chunk Mondelez, which makes things like Cadbury creme eggs, Nilla wafers, and Oreo cookies. Moneybeat reports:
He justified Pershing’s investment in Mondelez by saying that it’s “okay to have a chocolate bar or Oreo cookie” once in a while, and the maker of Oreo cookies wasn’t trying to replace “your grilled chicken with Oreos.” By comparison, he said, Coke’s business model was to “displace water with sugar water.”
Are you, at this point, positively reeling from the strong odor of ethics being displayed on both sides of this spat? I sure am.
HEALTHY FOOD CRUSADER AND ETHICIST BILL ACKMAN’S OTHER MAJOR HOLDINGS INCLUDE: Restaurant Brands International, the company that owns Burger King and Tim Horton’s donuts.
HUMAN RIGHTS CRUSADER AND ETHICIST CHARLIE MUNGER’S OTHER MAJOR HOLDINGS INCLUDE: Weapons maker General Electric, union-busting crap merchant Walmart, and financial vampire squid Goldman Sachs.
Not since the days of Socrates has a moral conversation of such import happened in the public square. We are all just lucky to witness it.