Francois Moller

Operator. Dad.
Capital, systems, space hardware, aviator. Weekends outdoors.

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

@nic_detommaso Love it. Well said.

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

@ashebytes A cap table that forwards competitor noise is not helpful. Best to stay heads down on goals without over indexing on competitors.

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

@butshaunn Agreed, however, bad design is fixable. A slide trying to do a memo’s job isn’t. Investors need three lines they can repeat, not a wall of information.

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

@ZacharyDeWitt Amazing! Does the next raise actually need to prove something that this one didn’t... more revenue, stronger retention, or simply another buyer willing to pay a higher price?

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

Founders don’t lose raises because the deck looks bad.

They lose them because it’s week four and there’s still no memo, nobody can make sense of the cap table, and the ask changes every time you get on a call.

The partner who liked the meeting now has to sell the deal internally. If they can’t pull three clear lines from your materials, they have to make the case themselves. And that’s where things start to fall apart.

Write the memo first. Worry about making slide 2 pretty later.

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

Public or private, silence on use of funds is how investors invent a worse story than the real one. A two-line note - how much to production vs. launch optionality vs. interest - would have done more for the stock than another bullish adjective. Same failure mode I see in private raises that.

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

The meeting is theater. The memo is the deal. If your champion cannot steal three lines — what it is, what traction actually proves, why the outcome size works for this fund — the partner meeting kills it without you in the room. Founders who write that memo for the partner get better translations.

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

A soft circle is not a close. A 19-slide deck is not a memo.
Raises die in week 6, when the founder is still sending a brochure.
Partners need three lines: the ask, the use of funds, and why this round changes the risk. Fuzzy there, the process leaks.
Hardware and aerospace add a second failure: nobody underwrote PO-to-cash, so the buyer invents one.
Write the memo. Stop decorating slide 2.

[AnySignal @AnySignal_Space]

AnySignal To Deliver End-To-End Communications for Apex Missions, Building on Flight-Proven Hardware

Pairing AnySignal's AnyLink network and hybrid ground segment with Apex's production buses means a customer can design their mission as a single architecture, with one platform provider, from first concept through on-orbit operations.

"Apex has been an important partner as we demonstrate the operability and value of AnyLink on orbit, and this agreement is a natural next step as we continue to expand our work together," said John Malsbury, Founder and CEO of AnySignal.

Read the full announcement: https://t.co/6GgVJ4A6EJ

[AnySignal @AnySignal_Space]

We’re honored to be named to the 2025 LA Hard Tech 50 🚀

Los Angeles has become a true engine for technical innovation. Grounded in decades of defense and aerospace heritage and powered by world-class engineers, operators, and manufacturers, the city is a hub of excellence. We’re proud to be building mission-critical technology at AnySignal alongside this exceptional community.

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

@elonmusk All for it - I hear a lot of folks pointing to tariffs being inflationary- how does that factor into the equation? Would lower consumer (or lower smart government) spending counter economic growth? Excited about new policies for sure!

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

@elonmuskADO A

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

This morning the @nytimes wrote a profile of me. The story can be found here:

https://t.co/dckxzsldi2

I initially chose not to cooperate with the profile as to hopefully discourage the reporter from writing it, as the Washington Post and New York magazine had recently already done their own profiles. Clearly, I failed. So I agreed to a fact check with the reporter when the article was nearly finished.

What motivates these profiles?

Since October 7th, I have riled up the left and left-wing media organizations as I have been a catalyst for former Harvard President Gay’s resignation; I have supported Israel in its fight to destroy Hamas, and I have advocated against the DEI movement. I encourage you to read my long-form post (with 35m views) on the problems with DEI (as opposed to small D diversity, small E equity and small I inclusion, all things I support) which can be found here:

https://t.co/cPABuyQgHZ

In short, I have taken on issues in opposition to and that are important to the woke left, and my posts on these topics have had considerable impact. This is quite threatening to the leftwing media as the New York Times used to be the paper of record, and now a guy with an X account can impact and help shape peoples views on important issues, but only if they find what he has to say convincing.

The media no longer have a monopoly on opinions or the narrative. As their power diminishes, they attack those that threaten their power.

To make matters worse, I am a traitor, as apparently I was perceived to be one of their own before my recent advocacy. To set the record straight, I have always been a centrist politically, supporting the issues and politicians on the left, right, and center that I agree with. As a New York City resident, I have toggled between being registered as a Democrat, Independent, and/or Republican depending on who was running for office to make sure my vote mattered.

Having been the subject of now three profiles and one full-on attack on my wife over the last few months (and many other less high-profile examples) by left-wing publications, I now understand the methods behind their approach.

The goal: to smear my reputation and that of members of my family in an attempt to discredit me and my views to blunt their impact, and to discourage me from continuing my advocacy. Let me be clear on my commitment to advocacy on these issues:

I will not be deterred.

The Approach
Use trigger words and phrases to characterize me as a thoughtless, overconfident, bullying billionaire. Include references to private air travel/jets, penthouses, mansions, dinner parties “with a few dozen friends,” personal trainers, stylists, etc. and being sloppy with or otherwise overstating the facts to create the desired impression. You get the point.

Then discredit the legitimacy of my business success by referring to the same three high profile losses that we have incurred over the last 20 years: Herbalife, Valeant, and JC Penney. Fail to mention that these investments were made 10-12 years ago and the losses were realized seven to 10 years ago.

By mentioning these three bad investments, and, to appear fair, a similar number of good investments, create the impression that I am a hit or miss investor who perhaps gets one out of every two investments correct. To wit, in the Times story, the subheading is “Big Wins Big Losses.”

[In fact, Pershing Square has generated returns substantially above the S&P 500 now for 20 years, and we have an extremely high investment batting average. Since we are a concentrated investor, however, mistakes we make are likely to be large and notable. We call out our own mistakes because we believe our investors are entitled to as much transparency about our mistakes as our successes.]

Then, attack me personally, creating a narrative that suggests (this is a first for me) that I have made inappropriate comments about appearance to both men and women at my company, and then couple this backdrop with stories about my defending men who allegedly sexually harass and/or rape women to give the reader the impression that I am a misogynist.

Then, mischaracterize my motivations, statements, posts, and their timing to convince readers that I am a racist. Use anonymous sources and then defend their anonymity for “fear of losing their jobs.”

After you come away with the impression that I am a racist, misogynist, billionaire, insensitive jerk, why would you listen to anything I have to say?

Mission accomplished.

Below, I walk through examples of the above approach in the piece and I do my best to correct the record. I encourage you to read the Times article in its entirety if you are suitably inspired.

The Reporter writes:

“For some, the intensity of Mr. Ackman’s focus on the issue seemed to come out of the blue, but in fact this kind of crusade was an extreme version of what he has long done in his professional life: full speed ahead, without any regard for the kind of potential collateral damage that some say he inflicted on Harvard’s community.”

The implication of the above is that my approach to investing is ‘guns blazing’ regardless of the facts and circumstances, which could not be further from the truth. We do months of deep due diligence on potential investments. We study the business, the industry, the management, and the competitors. We are looking for businesses that we can own for a decade or more. We make few investment decisions each year, and we use extraordinary care in making these decisions.

We are by no means full speed ahead, without regard to collateral damage. While we have made a few investment mistakes, I am not aware of any 'collateral damage' that I or we have 'long done.' If there are any such examples, the reporter should be required to provide examples to justify this statement.

The Reporter writes:

“He became a billionaire by following the corporate raider model pioneered in the 1980s by Mr. Icahn, Nelson Peltz, and others, in which investors take stakes in companies and demand change.”

This is false. In the 1980s, Icahn, Peltz, and others used junk financing and ‘highly confident’ financing letters from Drexel to threaten to take over a company, and in return received so-called ‘greenmail,’ i.e., large premiums for their shares to go away. This practice was made illegal as the greenmailing companies were left overleveraged, the repurchases were highly dilutive, and value was destroyed for shareholders.

For its first 12 years, Pershing Square was an activist investor. Unlike the greenmail approach of the 1980s, shareholder activism is a practice that benefits all shareholders as long as the activist is successful in enhancing shareholder value. Today, we don't make activist investments, but we are a highly engaged owner that works with management and boards to help our portfolio companies succeed.

The Reporter writes:

“But in 2014 Mr. Ackman raised money on the Amsterdam stock exchange, where the rules of the exchange allowed him to create a fund where investors could get their money out only if someone else bought their stake, similar to what he plans to do with his new retail fund.”

“The fund would operate as a closed-end fund, meaning investors could take money out only if someone else put new money in. (In a traditional mutual fund, you can remove money at any time.)”

The purpose of the above two paragraphs is to create the impression that our investors are somehow ‘stuck’ investing with our firm because we have some kind of special arrangement which is unique to the Amsterdam stock exchange rules. The premise of and facts in these paragraphs are entirely false.

The substantial majority of our assets under management are in a closed end fund. A closed end fund is a publicly traded company which has shareholders. Our closed end fund is listed on the London Stock Exchange and Euronext Amsterdam. Investors can’t take their money out of our company the same way that investors can’t take their money out of Berkshire Hathaway, Apple, or any other public company or closed end fund.

When investors want to get liquidity – when they are invested in a closed end fund or any other kind of publicly traded company – they sell the stock. Our company is no different. There are “no rules of the exchange [that] allowed him to create a fund where investors could get their money out only if someone else bought their stake.” This is an entirely false and misleading statement.

The Reporter writes:

“Take the case of David Sabatini, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and researcher who stepped down from his role at the university in 2022 after a review by other professors recommended revoking his tenure. M.I.T.’s president at the time, L. Rafael Reif, said in a letter to faculty that its own review concluded that Mr. Sabatini “behaved in ways incompatible with the responsibilities of faculty membership,” for having “engaged in a sexual relationship with a person over whom he held a career-influencing role” without disclosure. It had also received reports of “unprofessional behavior” by Mr. Sabatini toward “some lab members.”

Mr. Ackman, who said he conducted his own review, believes Mr. Sabatini was not fairly treated.”

David Sabatini is a world-class scientist that was accused of harassment by a senior colleague with whom he had a nearly two-year or so informal and consensual relationship. Their relationship had begun prior to a change in MIT’s rules on relationships, which then made their relationship impermissible, but they both elected to continue it nonetheless. The Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative team did a nearly year-long investigation of the allegations and interviewed many dozens of people that knew David and the alleged victim and wrote a two-part, many thousands of words story about the situation. I strongly encourage you to read it.

https://t.co/2jDSKgutQh

David serves on two Pershing Square Foundation scientific advisory boards for cancer and brain research. When the accusations and stories first emerged, we did not immediately assume that David was guilty despite what we read in the media and in MIT’s own self-serving and biased statements. We did our own thorough investigation with access to thousands of pages of confidential information include text messages, MIT's investigative report, and other documents.

After the Boston Globe completed its own investigation and wrote its story, I and other members of our foundation decided it was time for David to go back to science. We believed that the world would be better off with him getting back to the lab rather than waiting for the courts to redeem the damage to his character from the media stories and the accusations that had been made against him.

When the reporter writes: “Mr. Ackman, who said he conducted his own review, believes Mr. Sabatini was not fairly treated” she creates the impression that I did a cursory review of the facts, and ignored the conclusions of MIT that purportedly did a thorough investigation.

Unfortunately, faculty in universities live in a climate of fear of being cancelled, convicted or worse from accusations from students and colleagues about everything from sexual harassment, to racism, misgenderism, and more. It has become a toxic climate in which to attempt to advance knowledge, and where the presumption of innocence until one is proven guilty is largely thrown out the window. That is why many of the best scientists and academics are leaving university settings for private industry or other independent organizations. It is a sad time for our once great universities.

The Reporter writes:

“Closer to home, Mr. Ackman also intervened in accusations of sexual misconduct. In 2010, his personal trainer was jailed at Rikers Island on a rape charge. He called Mr. Ackman, who helped him post roughly $200,000 for bail, helped him find criminal lawyers and paid his legal bills. The case never moved past a New York grand jury, though the alleged victim, who said through a lawyer that she didn’t know about Mr. Ackman’s involvement, recently filed a suit against the trainer in court using the Adult Survivors Act. (The filing said that two other women had reported the trainer to the New York Police Department, accusing him of sexual assaults. The defendant filed his own defamation lawsuit in response.)

Mr. Ackman said he’s been a longtime supporter of the Innocence Project and has paid legal bills for people he didn’t know. In this case, he said, he believes his personal trainer was unfairly accused in all three instances.”

More than a decade ago, my then-personal trainer was arrested and accused of date rape. I bailed him out and helped him find a good lawyer and paid his legal fees (he offered to pay me back with training sessions). It was an eye-opening front seat into how the criminal justice system works. At the time I made the decision to assist him in his legal defense, I did not know whether he was innocent or guilty. He had only recently become my trainer, but I liked him, he had good references from the person who recommended him to me, and I believed he deserved a proper defense.

The story is worthy of a movie. In short, it involves false accusations that were later withdrawn, line-up fraud where a police officer told an unrelated groping victim to pick him out of the line up (the police did not understand how a ‘punk’ could have made $200k bail so they assumed he was a drug dealer and wanted him rearrested and put in jail), an exculpatory DNA sample that proved that he was not the one who had had sex with one of the alleged victims, a politically motivated AG office which was found to have ignored and/or suppressed exculpatory evidence in other unrelated rape cases, and one actual alleged victim whom he had met at a bar and had sex with, consensually, according to him. The prosecutor dropped two of the three above cases for the reasons described above, but went ahead with the he-said, she-said case.

Very few lawyers would recommend that their client testify in front of a grand jury, particularly if you are a man accused of raping a woman. You are not allowed to have your lawyer present, and the grand jury nearly always indicts the accused after the prosecutor makes her case. The accused almost never (actually probably never) shows up, particularly in a rape case.

The trainer’s lawyer advice was no different. He told my trainer not to testify. But my trainer told me that he was tired of being under a cloud and having me fund his legal and investigation fees, which by then, nearly two years after he was accused, were about $500,000 (a lot of training sessions). So, after the alleged victim testified (he was of course not present during her testimony), he testified. When his testimony did not match that of the alleged victim, the grand jury called her back for more questions. Thereafter, we learned that the grand jury had found him not guilty.

He was found NOT GUILTY by the grand jury. He never should have been mentioned in a profile about me. He has moved on with his life. He is married, gainfully employed elsewhere (I stopped working with him 8 or 9 years ago), and shouldn’t be included in a front-page New York Times article written about a false accusation more than a decade ago.

The reporter in this case initially insisted multiple times that she had to include his name in the article despite my pleading with her not to do so. In light of the damage this could cause to him, his career, and personal life etc., I explained all of the above to the reporter in considerable detail and the devastating impact that naming him in the story could have on his life.

After pushing back multiple times, when I continued to persist, she said that she would have to talk to her editor about getting his name removed from the story, which she eventually was able to do. But this was not without consequence to me. The reporter writes:

“The case never moved past a New York grand jury, though the alleged victim, who said through a lawyer that she didn’t know about Mr. Ackman’s involvement, recently filed a suit against the trainer in court using the Adult Survivors Act.”

Note:

‘who said through a lawyer that she didn’t know about Mr. Ackman’s involvement,’

The only reason why the alleged victim didn’t know about my involvement was that it was confidential, and had never been disclosed until the reporter told her.

Why is a reporter telling an alleged victim of my personal trainer of more than a decade ago that I paid for his lawyer? I thought the job of the press was to report the news and not to make the news. WTF?

The Reporter writes:

“Shortly after the Hamas attacks on Israel, Mr. Ackman became a vocal critic of the response by Harvard president Claudine Gay to complaints of antisemitism on campus. He quickly began to attack her by saying she had been hired because of her race and gender; from there, he used the occasion to join a larger crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at universities and in workplaces.”

This is totally false and misleading. I did not attack President Gay ‘[s]hortly after the Hamas attacks on Israel’. Nor did I ‘quickly beg[i]n to attack her.’ I did the opposite. I privately reached out to members of the Harvard board and President Gay multiple times and offered ideas to help resolve what I thought could become an explosive situation on campus. Only after I was rebuffed for weeks for a meeting with the board and President Gay and had a very disappointing conversation with its chairman, Penny Pritzker, did I write my first public letter on November 3rd, almost a month later.

In the November 3rd letter, I made suggestions to President Gay, which I would have made privately to her if given the opportunity, on what I thought Harvard should do to address the explosion of antisemitism on campus. I did not attack her whatsoever in that letter. Rather, I explained how I believed her proper handling of the issue could enhance her legacy and be an important example for other universities around the world. In the last two paragraphs of the closing section of the letter entitled: ‘Your Historic Opportunity’ I wrote:

Successfully addressing antisemitism at Harvard and creating an environment with true freedom of expression will become a critically important part of your legacy as the Harvard community works together to address these challenges at a difficult time in world history.

I would be delighted to help in any way that I can to enable you to succeed in this mission and as Harvard’s president. Please let me know what more I can do to help.

I encourage you to read the letter. It can be found here:
https://t.co/PdviTFU2Z3

More importantly, I did not say that "she was hired because of her race and gender." I said in an X post that:

“I learned from someone with first person knowledge of the Harvard president search that the committee would not consider a candidate who did not meet the DEI office’s criteria.”

What I said was that the pool of candidates was limited only to those who met the DEI office’s criteria. These candidates included LGBTQ+, people of color, etc. Not just black women. And I never said she was “hired because of her race and gender.”

The Reporter writes:

He began to live more like a billionaire. The company bought a private jet. People close to him said he hired a stylist around this time, though Mr. Ackman said he simply had someone bring in fabrics and recommendations for business suits (“I have my own style,” he said). The not-stylist introduced him to his personal trainer.

Our company owns a private jet. It’s an extremely useful business tool and time management device. Our company paid for it with its own money and we have no outside shareholders. I reimburse the company for any personal use as do other employees. The press doesn’t constantly reference the fact that Warren Buffett and the vast majority of Fortune 500 CEOs fly privately, and all of these companies have outside shareholders. Why do they always mention this fact in articles about me?

Second, I have never had a stylist. More than a decade ago, I bought suits from a traveling salesman who happened to be female. She did not advise me on what to wear, she simply provided me with a samples of fabrics for suits that I chose from. I have limited time so having someone come to the office rather than going to a tailor worked for me.

The reporter suggests that I have a stylist and makes fun of that fact to create the impression that I am hopefully out of touch with the average man on the street. She assumes that the suit salesperson is a stylist because she is a woman. Isn’t that sexist?

The Reporter writes:

“At Pershing Square, his investment firm, Mr. Ackman also tends to get closely involved in the lives of its several dozen employees. He can be generous, personally paying for medical bills and helping employees pay off debt.”

My gripe with the above is the phrasing: “He can be generous…” The implication of ‘can be’ is that I am often not. This could not be further from the truth. One of the privileges of being successful is that it is easy to be generous. And I have taken advantage of that privilege in personal situations, in how we do compensation at our firm, philanthropically ($700m+ of grants and counting and I am a signatory of the Giving Pledge) and otherwise. The reporter chose to say ‘can’ instead of ‘is’, and from that we understand her bias and how it affects the reader.

The Reporter writes:

“Last March, he hosted a small dinner at his Manhattan penthouse apartment and asked the dozen or so guests to bring ideas for ending the war in Ukraine.”

I consider ‘a small dinner’ to be two or maybe four guests. The reporter uses ‘small dinner’ and refers to ‘the dozen or so guests’ to imply that my concept of small is a normal person's concept of large. In other words, she implies we typically host lavish banquets, part of the billionaire theme to the story.

The Reporter writes:

“This month, he and Dr. Oxman hosted a dinner at his apartment for a few dozen friends where Yuval Noah Harari, the Israeli intellectual and best-selling author of ‘Sapiens,’”

More of the same. We had 20 guests include Yuval and his entourage. We invited six couples. She writes a few dozen to reinforce the billionaire theme.

The Reporter writes:

“...Mr. Ackman has at times taken things too far. He often critiques men’s appearances, by pushing them to lose weight and use his nutritionist. (Mr. Ackman said he had done that only with his close friends who happen to work with him.) He encourages his employees to work out at the company gym and told one of his executive assistants that the women in the office should consult him on hair and makeup decisions.”

Our firm has a unique, family-oriented, small firm culture. We have 40 partners/employees, many of whom I consider close friends, including some that were good friends before they joined the company. Two of these male friends struggled with weight and associated health issues at the time I encouraged them to see a nutritionist, something that I had personally found helpful in addressing my own challenge with weight issues years ago.

As CEO, my first and most important priority is the health and safety of all of our employees. That is why we serve healthy food to our employees and I encourage employees to live a healthy lifestyle including walking and running to work and/or using our gym.

When the reporter writes that I “told one of his executive assistants that the women in the office should consult him on hair and makeup decisions,” the reporter is attempting to accomplish several objectives. First, she is suggesting that I have several executive assistants (not including other assistants) to create the impression that I have many people serving at my beck and call.

I have only one assistant. I have never commented about her hair and makeup decisions, nor suggested that she nor anyone else should “consult with me on hair or makeup decisions.” We have a broad range of diversity of appearance, hair, facial hair, and makeup at our firm and neither I nor anyone else have ever established a policy about grooming or dress at the firm. People dress appropriately and don’t need my advice on that.

Second, the reporter is trying to create the impression that I am micromanaging everyone around me, including inappropriately, the appearance of others. This is totally absurd and false.

The Reporter writes:

“(He also wants to control his press narrative, warning this reporter “not to be the bad version of The New York Times.”)”

Clearly, I failed to do so. This is exactly what I meant when I referred to the bad version of the The New York Times.

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

Deloitte M&A Trends Report 2016 https://t.co/dVoG9TVXs9

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

Deloitte M&A iPad Application https://t.co/7vtSZxdkAf

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

2016 Insurance M&A Outlook: A year of continuing exuberance https://t.co/zbs7JENvnX

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

Deloitte M&A focus on: Analytics https://t.co/xt64zCg39h

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

Deloitte | Top Issues for Banking M&A in 2014 | Searching for growth and scale | Mergers | Acquisitions | Growth | B…http://t.co/syuQWKuXyJ

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

Deloitte | 2014 Insurance M&A Outlook | Momentum continues to build http://t.co/YYmSBkfayZ

[Francois Moller @francoismoller]

Enjoying my first ball game @ Yankee stadium http://t.co/0mmWBSTG