It’s the kind of purchase that would make most bank accounts go extinct.
Billionaire investor Ken Griffin clearly has cash to burn, however, as evidenced by the $44.6 million he dished out for a late-Jurassic stegosaurus skeleton.
Make no bones about it: This was the most valuable fossil ever sold at auction.
The purchase was made at Sotheby’s and after some mystery surrounding the identity of the buyer, it was revealed that Griffin was the man who put the big bucks forward. The American hedge fund manager and entrepreneur has an estimated net worth of $38.3 billion.
The towering, 11-foot-high behemoth, dubbed “Apex,” was excavated just outside of present-day Dinosaur, Colo., in May 2022.
It stretches 27 feet from top to tail and is the largest recovered of its kind.
It’s also one of the most complete with nearly 80% of its bones recovered, the New York Post reported.
Griffin founded the Citadel hedge fund. He beat out six other bidders and plans to loan the skeleton to other institutions for display but will prioritize keeping it in the U.S.
“Apex was born in America and is going to stay in America,” Griffin said in a news release after his win.
Griffin is no stranger to the fossil-funding game.
In 2018, he bestowed $16.5 million to Chicago’s Field Museum to pay for a touchable display of the biggest dinosaur ever discovered.
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Griffin was also named one of the top 200 art collectors in the world with a collection valued at $1 billion.
His collection is only going to continue to grow as he aims to preserve increasingly eclectic artifacts in the U.S. In November 2021, he spent $43.2 million on one of 13 known first-edition copies of the U.S. Constitution because his son asked him to.
He also said it was to preserve it for public viewing in America, just like his reasoning for purchasing the stegosaurus.
In May 2022, Griffin won two seats on the Blue Origins spaceflight, which he donated to two New York City public school teachers.
A near-complete tyrannosaurus named “Rex” was previously viewed as one of the most expensive skeletons after selling for $31.8 million at Christie’s Auction in 2020.