(Bloomberg) -- Bill Ackman’s foundation, which bought a stake in Elon Musk’s social-media platform X, reported the value of its investment dropped by more than half as of the end of last year, a new tax filing shows.
The billionaire’s Pershing Square Foundation owned a stake in X Holdings I valued at $4.3 million at the end of 2023, down from $10 million a year earlier, according to the organization’s annual public tax disclosure.
Musk bought X two years ago for $44 billion with backing from investors including Ackman, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and Fidelity Investments. Ackman, 58, is also an avid user of X, where he has 1.5 million followers. He has used the platform to wage high-profile attacks on “woke” universities and more recently to throw his support behind Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
“The Foundation used a third-party valuation to value its interest in X,” Francis McGill, a spokesperson for Ackman, said in an emailed statement Monday. “Bill believes that X will be an excellent long-term investment and that it has already made a major contribution to society.”
Ackman has publicly lauded Musk as the Tesla Inc. chief executive steps into his role leading the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency alongside entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. When an X user asked last month whether Ackman would ever consider joining DOGE if he had the opportunity to do so, the billionaire replied that he wouldn’t leave his day job but “I would be delighted to help anyway that I can to help DOGE succeed.”
Tax-exempt organizations like Pershing Square Foundation submit information on their holdings and grant-making in annual tax forms. More recently, a Fidelity mutual fund boosted the value of its equity stake in X by more than 32% to $5.53 million in October, its largest monthly increase since making the investment in late 2022.
(Updates with additional details on Musk and Ackman in fifth paragraph.)
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