Kenneth C. Griffin

Kenneth Cordele Griffin (born 1968) is an American hedge fund manager, entrepreneur and investor. He is the founder, chief executive officer, co-chief investment officer, and 80% owner of Citadel LLC, a multinational hedge fund. He also owns Citadel Securities, one of the largest market makers in the United States.

As of January 2026, Griffin had an estimated net worth of $51.2 billion, making him the world's 34th-richest person. In 2015, he made the largest private art deal in history when he bought two paintings, Willem de Kooning's Interchange and Jackson Pollock's Number 17A, for $500 million.

Griffin was included in Forbes's 2023 list of the U.S.'s Most Generous Givers, according to which he had donated $1.56 billion to various charitable causes, primarily in education, economic mobility, and medical research. He has also contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to political candidates and causes, usually Republican or conservative in ideology. Griffin is a member of The Business Council.

Griffin was born in 1968 in Daytona Beach, Florida, the son of a building supplies executive. His father had various jobs, and was a project manager for General Electric. Griffin's grandmother, Genevieve Huebsch Gratz, inherited an oil business, three farms, and a seed business after her husband and multiple relatives died.

Griffin grew up in Boca Raton, Florida, as well as Texas and Wisconsin. He went to middle school in Boca Raton and Boca Raton Community High School, where he was the president of the math club. In high school, Griffin ran a discount mail-order education software firm, EDCOM, out of his bedroom. In a 1986 Sun-Sentinel article, he said he thought he would become a businessman or lawyer and that he believed the job market for computer programmers would significantly decline over the coming decade.

Griffin started at Harvard College in 1986. That year, one of his first investments was to buy put options on Home Shopping Network. He made $5,000. He also invested in convertible arbitrage opportunities in convertible bonds. Despite a ban on running businesses from campus, Griffin convinced school administrators to allow him to install a satellite dish on the roof his dormitory, Cabot House, to receive stock quotes. He also asked Terrence J. O'Connor, the manager of convertible bonds at Merrill Lynch in Boston, to open a brokerage account for him with $100,000 that Griffin had gotten from his grandmother, his dentist, and others. His first fund launched in 1987, with $265,000. It launched in time to profit from short positions on Black Monday. Griffin graduated from Harvard in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.

After graduating in 1989, Griffin moved to Chicago to work with Frank Meyer, founder of Glenwood Capital Investments. Meyer allotted $1 million of Glenwood capital for Griffin to trade and Griffin made 70% in a year.

In 1990, Griffin founded Citadel LLC, with assets under management of $4.6 million, aided by contributions from Meyer. His funds made 43% in 1991 and 40% in 1992.

In the early 2000s, Griffin founded market maker Citadel Securities. In January 2022, Citadel Securities raised $1.15 billion from Sequoia Capital and Paradigm at a valuation of $22 billion, in its first outside investment since its founding. As of January 2026, Citadel has approximately $67 billion in assets under management, after distributing $5 billion in 2025 profits to investors. Since its founding in 1990, Citadel has generated approximately $90.4 billion in net gains after fees, making it the most profitable hedge fund in history, according to LCH Investments.

In 2003, aged 34, Griffin was the youngest person on the Forbes 400, with an estimated net worth of $650 million.

From the time of his second marriage to Anne Dias in 2003 until late 2009, Griffin was the lead investor in Aragon Global Management, a hedge fund run by his then wife. The fund was also seeded with money from Julian Robertson. Griffin lost 20% of his investment in the fund.

Griffin is a large private donor to charities and nonprofit organizations, having donated over $2 billion to charities so far.

In September 2023, Griffin launched Griffin Catalyst, a platform intended to organize and highlight his philanthropic and civic engagement initiatives. According to him, the effort was designed to provide an umbrella framework for future charitable giving and focuses on six areas: education, science and medicine, upward mobility, freedom and democracy, enterprise and innovation, and communities.

Reuters described Griffin Catalyst as a platform showcasing philanthropic organizations and initiatives supported by his giving.

From 2000 to 2022, Griffin served on the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago's board of trustees.

In July 2007, Griffin donated a $19 million addition to the Art Institute of Chicago designed by Renzo Piano and named Kenneth and Anne Griffin Court. One of his paintings by Paul Cézanne was loaned to the institute.

In a 2012 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Griffin said that the rich actually have too little influence in politics. He identified as a Ronald Reagan Republican. He said the belief "that a larger government is what creates prosperity, that a larger government is what creates good" is wrong.

In a November 2015 interview on CNBC, Griffin said he admires Scott Walker, calling him an "absolute champion of free markets and a champion of smaller government".

In April 2016, because Citadel owned over 1 million shares of McDonald's, Griffin was the target of protestors supporting the Fight for $15. In May 2017, he praised Donald Trump's efforts at tax and healthcare reform.

In 2018, it was announced that Griffin had been appointed the national finance chair for the New Republican PAC fueling Rick Scott's Super PAC.

In November 2018, Griffin criticized Trump's tweets berating Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, calling them "completely inappropriate for the president of the United States".

Griffin's first wife was Katherine Weingartt, his high-school sweetheart. The couple married in 1991 and divorced in 1996.

In March 2002, Griffin met his second wife, Anne Dias-Griffin, after being set up on a blind date by a mutual friend. The couple married in July 2003 and had three children.

Nick Offerman portrays Griffin in the 2023 film Dumb Money, a biographical drama about the GameStop short squeeze. Griffin said the original script contained many fabrications, and he coordinated with Sony Pictures to correct some inaccuracies before its release, but he still finds aspects of the film to be sensationalized.