Bill Ackman Has a Trade for Eric Adams
Mayors, Musk pay, a SpaceX tracking stock and an ATM Ponzi.
If you went to a candidate in a US election, and you said to him “I will pay you $1 million to drop out of this race so that my preferred candidate can win,” would that be legal? It sure seems illegal, but (1) nothing in this column is legal advice and (2) in US politics these days, people casually do a lot of stuff that they wouldn’t have even considered doing a few years ago, so who knows. Here’s a 2016 Bloomberg Opinion column by Stephen Carter arguing that it is illegal to pay a candidate to drop out of a race, but that it shouldn’t be.
If you were a candidate in a US election, and you decided that you would rather have $1 million than win your election, could you find a way to get paid $1 million for dropping out? Let’s assume that going to your opponent’s richest backer and saying “please give me $1 million to drop out” would be frowned upon. But in 2025 there are prediction markets, and if your election is high-profile enough, then there might be a trade here. The trade is: