Ken Griffin’s $125 Million Gift Gets His Name on Chicago Museum

(Bloomberg) -- Ken Griffin has buildings, wings and exhibitions named after him in Palm Beach, New York and Chicago. The billionaire hedge fund manager’s latest gift of $125 million will put his name on an entire museum.

The Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago will become the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science & Industry after a board vote Thursday accepting what it calls the largest single gift in its history. The donation is the Citadel chief executive officer’s biggest ever to a museum.

The gift “helps ensure that MSI remains a vital resource for science learning in the 21st century,” museum CEO David Mosena said in a statement. “Our mission has always been to inspire the inventive genius in everyone.”

Opened in 1933 in a building originally constructed for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, the museum is host to the only German submarine on display in the U.S. and one of the world’s largest pinball machines. Its expenses were $53.5 million in 2018, with about a fifth going to education programs such as classroom field trips, teacher training and after-school clubs.

Griffin, 50, first visited the museum as a child, descending into its “working” coal mine. He said his other favorite exhibit is the U-505 submarine captured by the U.S. Navy during World War II.

While not a member of the Chicago museum’s board, he’s on the governing body of the Whitney Museum of American Art, whose lobby bears his name, as does a wing at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and a hall at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Griffin briefly quit Whitney’s board in July, according to the New York Times, in protest after Vice Chairman Warren Kanders was driven out following months of demonstrations by activists opposed to his company’s sale of law enforcement and military supplies, including tear gas.

Griffin’s gift to the Science & Industry Museum -- which is currently undergoing a renovation -- will secure its long-term future and help create the Pixel Studio, a digital gallery and performance space, according to the statement.

Chris Crane, CEO of Exelon Corp., is chairman and Citadel Securities CEO Peng Zhao is a member. The museum’s current fundraising campaign has raised more than $300 million including Griffin’s gift.

Griffin is the world’s 148th-richest person with a net worth of $9.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He’s given more than $900 million to philanthropy, including a $150 million gift to Harvard University.

To contact the reporter on this story: Amanda Gordon in New York at agordon01@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill, Peter Eichenbaum

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.