Bill Ackman donated $400 million in Pershing Square stock to fund a new brain research institute

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The couple plans a Manhattan neuroscience and longevity center inspired by Ackman's daughter, who suffered a brain hemorrhage

Bill Ackman and his wife, Neri Oxman, are donating roughly $400 million in Pershing Square $SQ stock to fund a new Manhattan brain research center, with a second gift of similar or greater size to follow.

The couple announced the Ackman Oxman Institute, or AOI, on Wednesday, with Ackman writing in an X $TWTR post that his Pershing Square Foundation had donated 10 million shares of Pershing Square Inc. to anchor the venture. The shares were worth close to $400 million at Wednesday's closing price, according to Bloomberg. Ackman said a second donation of comparable or potentially greater value, not in the form of Pershing Square stock, would be announced later.

"Our goal is to build the world's greatest brain research, rehabilitation, recovery, human optimization, and longevity institute," Ackman wrote.

AOI will be structured as a nonprofit, but Ackman said it would be guided by "highly commercial instincts" — running its own venture funding arm, spinning up companies around campus-born technologies, and channeling financial returns back into research. It will partner with Mount Sinai and other hospitals and medical schools, Ackman said.

The Pershing Square Foundation has taken ownership of a 400,000-square-foot biotech building on Manhattan's West Side; a contract is in place for a nearby 130,000-square-foot space that, according to Bloomberg, currently serves as studio space for Saturday Night Live, along with a vacant lot next door. With additional construction, the campus could reach 680,000 square feet, Ackman said.

The project grew out of a family crisis. Lucy Ackman, 26, was found unconscious in her Brooklyn apartment, and doctors determined she had suffered a brain hemorrhage requiring emergency surgery. Months of treatment and rehabilitation shaped the institute's focus on translating scientific discoveries into treatments, he said.

Ackman also cited a shift in the competitive landscape for research talent. He said he and Oxman had explored a comparable idea roughly five years earlier, ultimately setting it aside partly out of doubt that they could pull top researchers out of academic institutions. Since then, he argued, universities have grown less appealing to elite researchers — pointing to politicized campus environments, antisemitism, and shrinking research budgets.

The AOI board counts among its members inventor Dean Kamen; George Yancopoulos, who co-founded Regeneron $REGN and serves as its chief scientific officer; biochemist James Rothman, a Nobel laureate; and neuroscientist Bernardo Sabatini, among others. Ackman said a CEO has been identified and will be announced by October; searches for a chief scientific officer and chief AI and technology officer are ongoing.

Pershing Square, Ackman's hedge fund, disclosed new positions in Netflix $NFLX, Visa $V, Mastercard $MA, and other stocks in the first half of 2026.

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