‘This is Total Bullshit’: Scott Galloway Blasts Bill Ackman For Blaming Wife’s Plagiarism Story on Anti-Semitism

AP Photo/Richard Drew

Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher, the co-hosts of the Pivot podcast, spoke at length recently about the internal blowback Business Insider received from its parent company after publishing an article detailing plagiarism allegations against billionaire Bill Ackman’s wife.

“Business Insider and its parent company, Axel Springer, are clashing over recent articles alleging Bill Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman, plagiarized parts of her 2010 dissertation,” noted Swisher as she introduced the topic on Friday’s episode:

Earlier this week, Axel Springer put out a statement saying it would, quote, review the processes and the motives around the stories to ensure that standards were upheld. Um. Business Insider editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson, who I’ve spoken to, says he’s made a call to publish the stories and stands by them. This was unprecedented. I want to know what you think of it, but let me just say a few things.

Axel Springer, head of communications, told Dylan Byers that a review was launched because of some of the accusations Bill Ackman made about the story, specifically the claim that, uh, investing Oxman was anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist. Oxman was born in Israel. Just utter nonsense, I’m sorry. And alleging that one of the editors was anti-Zionist. Um, uh, and Elon [Musk] has chimed in, of course, saying, I recommend a lawsuit. It’s ridiculous because it’s accurate. Um, I think most reporters were like, this was accurate. This is crazy. And I can’t believe they meddled like this. I am highly disappointed in them.

“You know, he it’s because he’s prominent and he screams a lot. Um, and he’s also gone back on what plagiarism is. He’s changed his opinion after he got, uh, Claudine Gay, and now when it applies to his wife, it’s not plagiarism,” Swisher added, referring to the former president of Harvard who resigned over plagiarism allegations. Ackman had campaigned against Gay remaining president of Harvard after her controversial appearance before a House committee hearing on anti-Semitism.

Galloway responded by first defending Ackman for his work fighting on-campus anti-Semitism.

“I admire that he is speaking out because you do get a lot of blowback. And as a big donor and a leader in finance, I think he has the right to speak out on this,” Galloway began before pivoting.

“Having said that, this is total bullshit,” he then argued, adding:

When Claudine Gay says that she was fired because of racism, that is not true. She was fired because the ground shifted beneath her and because she said things that played into people’s worst fears about a tolerance of antisemitism, of which there is no similar tolerance across any other form of bigotry. And she was fired, which, by the way, happens all the time. And neither was racism.

When the president of Penn was fired a couple weeks before. At the same time, if again, we said this in the last show, if Bill Ackman wants to weaponize a time machine and start combing through Claudine’s past and specifically accusations, or AI discovered accusations of plagiarism, he sets his wife up, who is also a prominent academic, for the same type of scrutiny.

And what is most upsetting about this is we are entering an era where billionaires like Peter Thiel or Elon Musk or Bill Ackman, unfortunately, can use their billions and their influence to suppress free speech and journalism. This is a free I mean, if you want to actually talk about a free speech issue, billionaires, in my opinion, should not be creating a chill around what is. He may not like the reporting. I don’t see anything that was not true in this.

Galloway also argued he was “disappointed” by Axel Springer owner Mathias Döpfner and defended Business Insider’s story. “I’m disappointed he didn’t stand behind Business Insider. Yes, I went back and I read the article and I’m like this is hardly slander. Everything I see in here is accurate,” Galloway added.

Returning to Ackman and any pressure he put on Axel Spring, Galloway said, “And on the whole, I think his contribution to this master situation has been positive. But when he starts trying to put a chill on journalism with his billions, that is just bullshit. It is bullying and it’s bad for America.”

Later in the conversation, Galloway concluded, “I really didn’t like it when Claudine Gay immediately pulled out the racism card when she was fired. I don’t think it’s any less distasteful that he is admittedly going to anti-Semitism here.”

“And also George Carlin, uh, who’s kind of a hero of mine, said, ‘I love people as individuals. He’s like, you can see the universe in their eyes. It’s when they begin to coalesce in groups when they begin to clot, that they’re dangerous.’ And one of the most dangerous clotting, as as epitomized here, is white billionaires in their 50s and 60s.”

Listen to the full episode here.