(Reuters) -Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman endorsed U.S. former President Donald Trump on Saturday in the Republican’s rematch race against President Joe Biden, shortly after Trump was shot in the ear at a campaign rally.
“I am going to formally endorse @realDonaldTrump,” Ackman posted on social media platform X. “I assure you that I have made this decision carefully, rationally, and by relying on as much empirical data as possible”.
Ackman followed Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who endorsed Trump and expressed “hope for his rapid recovery” from the shooting, in which Trump was hit in the upper right ear but said by his campaign to be doing fine.
Ackman’s endorsement marks a change from 2021. After the attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Ackman posted that Trump should “resign and apologize to all Americans.”
The chief executive and portfolio manager of Pershing Square Capital Management said he had recently spent a few hours with Trump but did not explain the reasoning behind his endorsement.
He said it would take another long-form post to lay out his thinking. “I just haven’t had the time nor felt the urgency to write the post as we are still a few months from the election,” he said.
Ackman’s endorsement did not mention Saturday’s shooting. He alluded to it in a later post: “We are in the midst of a perilous moment for our democracy.”
“I came to this decision some time ago as many X followers have already understood from my supportive posts of Trump and my criticisms of Biden,” Ackman said. He has 1.3 million followers on X.
Ackman had considered endorsing Trump as recently as May, and had planned to announce his support on X, Reuters and other media outlets reported.
(Reporting by Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru and Carolina Mandl in New York; Editing by William Mallard, Lananh Nguyen and Jamie Freed)
