(Bloomberg) — For those in crypto and the stock markets who’ve been feeling some pain, the Robin Hood Foundation benefit Monday night offered a few hours’ respite. And the chance at a real picker-upper: a rocket to space.
Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder of hedge fund Citadel, made the winning $8 million bid, in absentia, but doesn’t plan to take the flight. Instead he’s giving his seat on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin New Shepard to a New York City public school teacher, who’ll join another educator already scheduled to be aboard.
“I hope this moment will ignite the imagination of our students and inspire the next generation to push the boundaries of what humanity can achieve while underscoring the extraordinary role our teachers play in the lives of our children,” Griffin said in an emailed statement Tuesday.
Corrects price of the Blue Origin seat in headline of the web article.
Citadel Chief Technology Officer Umesh Subramanian made the final bid on behalf of Griffin. Mike Novogratz had raised his hand at $4 million.
Taking it all in at the Javits Center were Bezos and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez; Dina Powell McCormick, Alison Mass, Lisa Opoku and Chris Kojima of Goldman Sachs; Guggenheim’s Alan Schwartz; Nelle Miller of JPMorgan; and hedge fund managers Boaz Weinstein, Scott Goodwin, Larry Robbins and Leon Cooperman.
The live auction, conducted by Lydia Fenet of Christie’s, was brief but it drove home the big idea of the night: Those with money, power, privilege and access are in a position to lift up those with less of it.
The event brought in $126 million, all for Robin Hood’s poverty-fighting initiatives in New York. A big chunk of that — $100 million — will fund a new initiative to expand childcare programs. The goal is not only to nurture children, but to provide support to working parents.
Here’s how it added up: Mayor Eric Adams said the city would contribute $50 million, while Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit and of 776 Fund Management, put in $25 million. The Bezos Family Foundation kicked in $10 million. Some of the rest came from donations made during the event, solicited by Paul Tudor Jones, who donned a spacesuit for the occasion.
“Every dollar invested in quality early childhood experience yields $9 in benefits to society,” Robin Hood CEO Richard Buery said.
“That’s a 900% return,” Tudor Jones added, “which is a hell of a lot better than the stock market’s doing this year.”
As for the spacesuit costume, Tudor Jones milked it, as he asked guests to pull out their mobile phones and give.
“This is one small step for childrenkind in New York City,” he said.
After dinner, guests lined up to go inside a New Shepard crew capsule, as John Legend performed.
Solace over the markets was still in order. To the “finance folk who’ve had a rough week or so,” Legend said, he played “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
Before the auction began, comedian John Mulaney voiced skepticism about going to space.
“If a force is trying to hold you on a planet, stay on that planet,” he said. “Also what are everyone’s priorities right now? We need to go to Mars? Get Florida under control.”
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