US Markets
Monday, September 18th, 2023 2:14 pm EDT
Key Points
- Billionaire and Citadel CEO Ken Griffin will not be supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.
- Griffin is not impressed with what he’s seeing from the alternatives to frontrunner Donald Trump and has yet to decide who he plans to help.
Billionaire and Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, a major Republican donor, will not be supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who he backed in 2022, in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. Griffin says he is not impressed with what he’s seeing from the alternatives to frontrunner Donald Trump and has yet to decide who he plans to help.
Griffin has an estimated net worth of $35 billion and gave more than $100 million to a mix of state and federal candidates during the 2022 midterms, with almost all of it going toward Republicans. He gave $5 million in 2021 to a political action committee backing DeSantis’ successful reelection bid.
His sidelining in the GOP primary means, at least for now, one of the party’s biggest contributors will not be putting his considerable financial resources toward a candidate challenging Trump’s enormous advantage.
Griffin has also criticized DeSantis’ war against Disney, calling it “pointless.” The fight between DeSantis and Disney started last year, when the company said it opposed Florida’s so-called Don’t Say Gay bill, which forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for students in public school.
After Disney came out against the bill, DeSantis and his allies targeted the special tax district that had allowed Disney to effectively self-govern its Orlando-area theme parks for decades. Disney and DeSantis are now locked in dueling lawsuits.
Read the full article here: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/18/billionaire-ken-griffin-former-desantis-donor-sits-out-gop-primary.html
