Bill Ackman, Elon Musk, Mark Cuban debate DEI efforts

On Wednesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, wrote: “DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it.”

That was in support of a long post by hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman on the reasons he pressured Harvard president Claudine Gay to resign, as she announced she would earlier this week. Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, is a Harvard alum and prominent donor to the university. 

Gay received intense criticism last month for her answers to lawmakers over anti-Semitism on campus following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. Specifically, she failed to condemn calls for genocide against Jews as a violation of university policy. That was followed by allegations by conservative activists that she had committed plagiarism in her academic work, and suggestions that she had been unqualified for the role of president, which she assumed last July, in the first place.

“It was a thinly veiled exercise in race & gender when they selected Claudine Gay,” entrepreneur and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a Harvard alum, posted to X on Tuesday. “Here’s a radical idea for the future: select leadership based on *merit.*”

When an X user responded to Musk by questioning whether DEI qualifies as racism, Musk countered: “Discrimination on the basis of race, which DEI does, is literally the definition of racism.” 

At this point, another billionaire weighed in: Mark Cuban, the Shark Tank star and Dallas Mavericks owner (last month he sold his majority stake in the NBA team to families linked to Sheldon Adelson, the late Las Vegas casino magnate). 

“Let me help you out and give you my thoughts on DEI,” he responded to Musk. 

“Good businesses look where others don’t, to find the employees that will put your business in the best possible position to succeed,” he continued. “You…