Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin splurges $45m on VERY unusual purchase

Billionaire Ken Griffin has paid nearly $45m to ain his ain 150 million-year-old dinosaur skeleton.

The Citadel boss, 55,  purchased a late-Jurassic stegosaurus skeleton for $44.6 cardinal astatine Sotheby’s successful New York City connected Wednesday - a record-setting sum successful dinosaur collecting.

The stegosaurus, named 'Apex,' is 11 feet gangly and astir 27 feet and has been called nan 'finest stegosaurus specimen ever to look astatine auction.'

The skeleton was expected to waste for astir $6million, pinch Griffin winning nan unrecorded auction aft competing pinch six different bidders for 15 minutes, arsenic reported by CNBC. 

Griffin reportedly plans to research lending nan specimen to a US institution. 

'Apex was calved successful America and is going to enactment successful America!' Griffin said aft his winning bid.

Sotheby’s said Apex shows nary signs of combat-related injuries aliases grounds of post-mortem scavenging.

The erstwhile grounds for nan astir costly dinosaur was complete $10million. 

Apex was discovered by paleontologist Jason Cooper adjacent municipality of Dinosaur, Colorado, according to QUARTZ.

Griffin has a history of bidding connected humanities and archeological items.

In 2021, Griffin shelled retired $43.2 cardinal for a uncommon first-edition transcript of nan U.S. Constitution astatine a Sotheby’s auction, outbidding a set of much than 17,000 cryptocurrency investors.

The crypto enthusiasts had crowdfunded much than $40 cardinal worthy of nan cryptocurrency Ethereum though a spirited societal media run earlier successful nan week.

Griffin's winning bid came aft an eight-minute conflict pinch nan conjugation of cryptocurrency fanatics, and it much than doubled nan $20 cardinal that nan archive was thought to beryllium worthy - mounting a world auction grounds for immoderate book, manuscript, humanities archive aliases printed text.

The document, 1 of only 11 known surviving copies of nan U.S. charter, was signed connected September 17, 1787, astatine Philadelphia's Independence Hall by famed American founding fathers including Washington, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison.