Citadel billionaire Ken Griffin's son told him to buy a rare copy of the US Constitution— driving him to splash out $43.2 million to outbid a crypto group

• Citadel boss Ken Griffin has said his son urged him to buy a rare copy of the US Constitution, Bloomberg reported.
• Griffin spent $43.2 million on the document, way more than the estimated price of $15 million to $20 million.

Ken Griffin said his son convinced him to buy a rare copy of the US Constitution, which the billionaire hedge-fund manager snapped up last month for $43.2 million, outbidding a crypto collective.

The Citadel founder upset some in the crypto community when he splashed out on one of the 13 surviving copies of the original 1787 printing of the historic document. That's because he beat ConstitutionDAO, which had raised more than $40 million from around 17,000 donors.

Griffin said at a civic lunch in Palm Beach that he asked the crypto group if they wanted to have joint governance, but they couldn't come to an agreement, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

"I was sitting at home in New York, and my son calls me to say, 'Dad, you have to buy the Constitution,'" he said, according to the report.

The billionaire said he became focused on winning the document, so he put up millions of dollars to buy it. "I don't do that very often," he said.

Griffin is the founder of Citadel, a hedge fund, and Citadel Securities, a market maker which has become central to modern global finance, facilitating trading between buyers and sellers. He has a net worth of $21 billion, according to Forbes.

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ConstitutionDAO was a decentralized autonomous organization — a leaderless group whose rules are enforced on a blockchain. "We the people plan to preserve the document for the people," the group said in one of its earliest posts.

The guide price for the bidding was around $15 million to $20 million. But in a frenzied auction, both sides ramped up the price until Griffin came out on top.

Griffin said he was in contact with the crypto group ConstitutionDAO on the night of the sale at Sotheby's, and that afterwards he asked if they wanted to collaborate on governance — to no avail.

The group has since disbanded, saying it will let donors claim back the millions of dollars they donated. The collective's token has become a meme coin in recent weeks.

Griffin was already relatively unpopular among meme-stock traders and crypto types, with allegations swirling online in January that Citadel Securities had pressured Robinhood into halting trading in stocks such as GameStop.

The billionaire has flatly denied any such claims, telling lawmakers that Citadel Securities had "no role" in Robinhood's move.

A federal court in Miami recently dismissed a lawsuit brought by retail investors alleging Citadel Securities and Robinhood conspired to halt meme-stock trading.

This article has been amended to clarify that Citadel, the hedge fund, and Citadel Securities, the market maker, are functionally separate, and that Griffin made the comments at a lunch in Palm Beach rather than to Bloomberg.