Ken Griffin doubles down on Miami with a record $3 billion gift to Carnegie Mellon—and plans for a campus in the city Citadel now calls home

Billionaires have been on a giving spree recently, particularly toward higher education. Ken Griffin, the Citadel CEO who is making major moves to reshape Miami, just committed an eye-popping $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University, the school announced Wednesday. 

CMU says this is the largest gift by an individual ever given to a higher education institution, although Nike cofounder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, just committed $1 billion to the University of Oregon and many others have made $100 million-plus gifts to other schools recently. Oil tycoon Harold Hamm recently gave $150 million to the University of Oklahoma.

But Griffin’s gift is noticeably different. It’s establishing an entirely new campus in Miami. Of the $3 billion gift, $1 billion will support CMU’s Pittsburgh campus, while the remaining $2 billion will launch CMU Miami. 

Griffin’s big bet on Miami

Griffin, a Florida native who grew up in Boca Raton, moved his family and the headquarters of both Citadel and Citadel Securities to Miami in 2022 after more than three decades in Chicago, where he’d grown........

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