“Chicago Is Like Afghanistan”: Ken Griffin Is Moving Citadel To Miami, Leaving Chicago Crime Cesspool Behind

Ken Griffin has had it with the Chicago crime cesspool.

The billionaire is moving Citadel’s headquarters to Miami, the third major employer after Boeing and Caterpillar to announce the move of a corporate headquarters from Illinois in the past two months after the trading titan decried the city’s crime rate and voiced frustrations with political leadership in Illinois.

In a letter to employees sent on Thursday, Griffin said he had personally moved to Florida and that his market-making business, Citadel Securities, would also transfer. He wrote he views Florida as a better corporate environment and though he didn’t specifically cite crime as a factor, company officials said it was a consideration, the WSJ reported. Which reminds us: where is the Netflix special on inner city black-on-black crime in general, and Chicago’s weekly murder spree in particular? Oh, it’s not there… what a shocker.

The relocation will affect both hedge fund Citadel and Citadel Securities, the market making business, firm spokesman Zia Ahmed said Thursday according to Bloomberg, and marks the first step in a multi-year process that will involve the firm building a new office in Miami, which will serve as its global headquarters, and where a few hundred people will be based as soon as next year.

“Chicago will continue to be important to the future of Citadel, as many of our colleagues have deep ties to Illinois,” Griffin wrote, before explaining that the ties will not be that deep. “Over the past year, however, many of our Chicago teams have asked to relocate to Miami, New York and our other offices around the world.”

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Back in October 2021 Griffin revealed that “Chicago is like Afghanistan, on a good day, and that’s a problem.” He also said that he saw “25 bullet shots in the glass window of the retail space” in the building he lives in. – READ MORE