Billionaire investor Ken Griffin pulled no punches when discussing his hedge fund’s departure from Chicago, a city that housed Citadel for over three decades. Speaking at a conference in New York on October 6, Griffin revealed how the move to Miami in 2022 came amid a backdrop of escalating crime and burdensome taxes that made relocation an easy sell to his employees.
“Chicago, you know, over the last, unfortunately, over the last six or seven years, has been engulfed in a series of problems,” Griffin said.
The exodus has accelerated since then, with Citadel’s Chicago workforce dwindling from around 1,300 to just a few hundred. The firm is set to vacate its namesake tower entirely, reducing its presence to a mere two floors in another building within the next year. This shift aligns with a larger pattern of businesses fleeing Illinois, as noted in recent reports from Wirepoints, which detail how high taxes and unchecked violence have hollowed out the state’s economic core.
“Asking people to leave Chicago for New York or Miami has not been hard. We’ve gone from probably 1,300 people in Chicago to a few hundred. From being the primary tenant of one of the largest skyscrapers to, I think we will be down to two floors in a year,” Griffin added.
Griffin’s $50 billion fortune, built through one of the world’s most profitable hedge funds, now operates from Miami’s financial district—a stark contrast to Chicago’s troubled streets. He pointed to crime as a persistent threat, one that has only worsened under policies that seem designed to let chaos reign.
President Donald Trump’s recent calls for deploying National Guard troops to Democrat-run cities like Chicago echo these concerns, clashing with critics such as Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who has condemned federal interventions.
“I think the sad part of the story is how many people who had built lives in Chicago were willing to walk away from that and move to Miami or New York, just given the challenges that Illinois has faced,” Griffin said.
This isn’t isolated; it’s part of a deliberate erosion, some observers argue, where soft-on-crime approaches and tax hikes serve hidden agendas to drive out wealth creators and reshape urban landscapes. Power Line blog recently described Chicago as “circling the drain,” with Citadel’s full retreat symbolizing the inevitable fallout. Meanwhile, Florida’s lower taxes and stricter law enforcement have drawn firms like Citadel, boosting Miami’s skyline while Chicago’s fades.
Griffin’s story serves as a warning: when leaders prioritize ideology over safety and fiscal sanity, even longstanding institutions pack up and leave. As the New York Post reported on October 12, the decision was straightforward, rooted in realities that no amount of political spin can hide.
