Bill Ackman’s $400 million brain institute was inspired by his daughter—and built outside elite universities, which he says are losing talent

Five years ago, Bill Ackman said it would have been too hard to lure top scientists away from universities.

Now, he thinks the balance of power has shifted.

The billionaire investor and his wife, designer and entrepreneur Neri Oxman, are launching a new Manhattan neuroscience and longevity center called the Ackman Oxman Institute, or AOI.

Ackman said in a lengthy Aug.

19 post on X that the couple is donating roughly $400 million in Pershing Square stock to anchor the institute, with another gift of a similar or potentially greater size to come.

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

The project is partly a bet on brain science, but also one that traditional universities have become more vulnerable in the competition for elite researchers.

Ackman said he and Oxman considered creating a brain institute half a decade ago, inspired in part by Oxman’s mother, who died from Alzheimer’s.

They decided against it because New York real estate was too expensive and they believed it would be “too difficult to recruit the best talent from universities to our effort,” Ackman wrote.

But he said the equation has changed.

The real estate needed for the project became available at a 70% discount.

Universities, meanwhile, have become “a much less attractive place to work,” he wrote , citing campus politics, antisemitism and declining funding.

That claim fits into Ackman’s broader fight with elite universities .

He helped lead the pressure campaign against former Harvard president Claudine Gay , criticized the university’s handling of antisemitism , attacked its DEI policies and later called for the ousting of several Harvard board members.