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Transcript of Bill Ackman Interview: All-In Liquidity 2026

Bill Ackman Here s What the Market is MISSING

Editor’s Note: Bill Ackman joins the All-In hosts at Liquidity 2026 to discuss how his investment philosophy has shifted toward durable, long-term business quality. He shares his views on AI disruption, the “SaaSpocalypse,” SpaceX and venture-style underwriting, and his plan to turn Howard Hughes into the next Berkshire Hathaway. He also explains the three ways to invest alongside Pershing Square. This interview was premiered June 2, 2026.

TRANSCRIPT:

Evolution of Ackman’s Investment Philosophy

DAVID FRIEDBERG: (00:00:52 – 00:01:27) I wanted to kick this off. So thank you so much for being here. We’ve tried a number of times to get you to All-In, and it’s great to finally have you. You obviously are a legend that doesn’t need much of an introduction. Lately, in the last number of, call it years or months or quarters or what have you, it seems your investment philosophy may be changing. Your model where you’ve been activist and you’ve entered positions and exited positions, and lately you’ve talked a lot about more kind of permanent long-term holdings. Would love to hear a little bit about if that is actually a change and how your evolution and your investment model has changed over time.

BILL ACKMAN: (00:01:28 – 00:03:46) Sure. So I would say the biggest change over time is an appreciation for the importance of what we call business quality— long-term, durable, protected, non-disruptible growth. I would say early days, you’re a smaller, more liquid investor. You don’t have to think as long-term. As you become a bigger concentrated investor. And over time, you learn the importance of durable kind of growth. That’s the most important factor. I would say I’m as activist as I’ve ever been, but more of it’s on Twitter than in the corporate context.

And the reason for that is when I started in Pershing Square, no one sort of knew who we were. And so I actually— one of our first investments was Wendy’s International. Wendy’s owned Tim Hortons, the Canadian coffee and doughnut chain, and the value of Tim Hortons was more than the entire value of Wendy’s. So we had this very simple idea: buy Wendy’s, spin off Tim Hortons, double our money. And we bought 10% of the company, and I called the CEO, and he didn’t return my call. And I called him again, he didn’t return my call. I literally couldn’t get a return phone call. That was the beginning.

So we actually called a friend who worked at Blackstone, and Steve Schwarzman agreed to write a fairness opinion on what Wendy’s would be worth if we spun off Tim Hortons. We kind of mailed it in and filed it publicly, and 6 weeks later they spun off to importance. And then the CEO finally called me back and he thanked me. And he had gotten fired, but he thanked me because he had a huge exit package and he was very happy. But so in the beginning, we couldn’t get a return phone call, so we had to— and we were small, so we had to go to a conference and we had to do presentations and go on CNBC.

What happens over time is you join boards of directors, you become known as an investor. We’re kind of a constructive shareholder. I know pretty much every CEO in the S&P 500, either directly or one person removed. And maybe I age— I’ve aged a bit, but you build kind of a reputation. And today we buy a stake in a company, sometimes they’ll put out a tweet saying, “We welcome Pershing Square as a shareholder,” but they open the door for us. In the beginning, we had to bang down the door.

And today— so we get very deeply involved in our companies if it’s needed. Other companies we own, there’s nothing for us to do, just be there, just clap.

DAVID FRIEDBERG: (00:03:47 – 00:03:49) So you are considered a value-add investor.

BILL ACKMAN: (00:03:49 – 00:03:57) Yeah, but we only want to add value. The conversation last night was kind of an interesting one. The best investments are ones where you don’t need to join the board and do anything.

DAVID FRIEDBERG: (00:03:57 – 00:04:00) Well, that may be in a startup, but in a mature business, it may be—

BILL ACKMAN: (00:04:00 – 00:04:38) No, I think in the public company context, one of the valuable things we can do. The problem of being a public company today is kind of the very short-term nature of markets, analysts, etc. And obviously to run a business— a business is a good one is a forever thing. And you want to make decisions in the context of decades sometimes, or certainly 3, 5 years. And how can you do that when someone’s asking about the tax rate in the second quarter?

And having a big shareholder on the board where you can kind of test ideas out with the big shareholder before you expose them to the public. Where the big shareholder can say, “I’m supportive of this initiative even though it’s going to hurt earnings in the next few quarters,” is a helpful thing.

AI, Business Model Quality, and Disruption Risk

CHAMATH PALIHAPITIYA: (00:04:38 – 00:04:51) I just want to connect this last conversation with Sarah to this. Are you an investor in the AI complex and how do you underwrite business model quality from what you see on the outside in the entire complex?

BILL ACKMAN: (00:04:52 – 00:05:08) I mean, yes, effectively we’re an investor. We’re actually— today we own Microsoft, we own Meta, we own Amazon. Actually, I think either directly or indirectly, you’re invested in AI, or it’s a threat. So you have to understand it. How do I think about AI in a business model context?

CHAMATH PALIHAPITIYA: (00:05:08 – 00:05:09) Business model quality.

BILL ACKMAN: (00:05:10 – 00:05:50) Look, when you’re a concentrated investor or investor generally and you’re a long-term investor, the most important and most challenging thing to do is determine what’s the risk of disruption?