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Ken Griffin Spends $8 Million on Bezos Space Flight and Will Donate It to a Teacher

  • Robin Hood Foundation brings in $126 million at its fundraiser
  • Alexis Ohanian gives $25 million for NYC childhood programs
Ken Griffin

Ken Griffin

Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg
Updated on

For those in crypto and the stock markets who’ve been feeling some pain, the Robin Hood Foundation benefit Monday night offered a few hours’ respite. And the chance at a real picker-upper: a rocket to space. 

Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder of hedge fund Citadel, made the winning $8 million bid, in absentia, but doesn’t plan to take the flight. Instead he’s giving his seat on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin New Shepard to a New York City public school teacher, who’ll join another educator already scheduled to be aboard.