Do we like them?

Do we like Ken Griffin?

Our score: 6 out of 10. No harmful words of his own turned up and some real good sits alongside, but the record on LGBTQ+ and climate issues is thin and the donations are huge.

Ken Griffin is the billionaire founder of the hedge fund Citadel and the market maker Citadel Securities. In 2022 he moved the company's base from Chicago to Miami, citing failing schools, crime and politics in his old city. A 54-storey Norman Foster-designed Miami headquarters is due in 2030.

The latest noise is that the big Republican donor has gone off sucking up to the White House. In February he told an event that executives lining up at the Oval Office for tariff exemptions was “nauseating”, and that some administration decisions had been very enriching to its members' families. He also praised Trump for ending Biden-era regulation and said Trump does listen.

Then came the Mamdani stoush. On Tax Day the New York mayor posted a video outside Griffin's Manhattan penthouse to promote a surcharge on pricey second homes. Griffin told CNBC it put him “in harm's way” and called it “really poor taste”, then expanded Citadel's Miami building plans. Whether you read it as a fair complaint about being singled out or a billionaire sulking about a tax is your call.

Now the harm check. We found no words from him against LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants. He has said that “woke ideology” was a problem in schools, which is a culture-war line, but not an attack on a group. He has said that cutting immigration will lift grocery and housing prices, and that tariffs are a regressive tax. The worry is the money: almost a quarter of a billion dollars to candidates over a decade, including DeSantis, Sheehy and McCormick, plus roughly $40 million this midterm. He has also said he has never donated to Trump. We found nothing on his views on trans rights or the climate, and that's a real gap.

Looking ahead, Axios reported that he'd be “predisposed” to back Marco Rubio over JD Vance if both ran in 2028, because he backed Rubio's 2016 bid. Raw Story noted he has previously said the GOP should “move on” from Trump. He's an establishment Republican rather than a MAGA true believer, but the cheques still flow to a party whose positions plenty of readers will hate.

On the court and regulator front, the record is about his firm, not him. In 2023 Citadel Securities paid $7 million after the SEC alleged a coding error marked millions of short and long sale orders the wrong way over five years. The firm said it had no impact on the quality of client execution. We found nothing naming Griffin personally.