Billionaire Ken Griffin bought a copy of the US Constitution for $43.2m because his son asked him to

Hedge fund mogul dubbed the ‘grinch’ by swooping in and ruining a crypto crowdfunding effort to buy documents by the founding fathers

(Getty)

Billionaire Ken Griffin said he bought a copy of the US Constitution because his son told him to do so.

The founder of American hedge fund Citadel bought a copy of the 234 year-old document in a Sotheby’s auction, after his son called him and said it would be a good idea.

“I was sitting at home in New York and my son calls me to say, ‘Dad, you have to buy the Constitution,’” Mr Griffin said at an event hosted by the Palm Beach Civic Association on Thursday at the Four Seasons Resort, Palm Beach.

The auction listing gained attention after crypto investor group ConstitutionDAO, which stands for decentralised autonomous organisation, started a crowdfunding effort to buy it.

The group raised more than $40 million in cryptocurrency to buy one of 13 surviving copies of the Constitution left in existence. More than 17,000 people chipped in, but in the end lost to Mr Griffin, who secured the lot of $43.2 million – a record figure, according to Sotheby’s.

“I told myself, ‘I am going to own this,’” said Griffin, reported Bloomberg Wealth, “I don’t do that very often.”

The hedge fund boss got in contact with the ConstitutionDAO after the auction and asked if they wanted to arrange joint governance for the document, and jointly decide where it would be displayed.

The two parties couldn’t come to a decision.

CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners  Michael Novogratz, said that Mr Griffin buying the constitution was a “tone-deaf move”.

He claimed the crypto crowdfunding effort and ConstitutionDAO “might have been the coolest thing that happened all year long in crypto”. The group wanted to give the Constitution back to the people, but, he said, “Ken Griffin played the Grinch”, as a “rich billionaire coming into kind of spoil the party”.