The identity of the billionaire who purchased a dinosaur skeleton for $44.6 million—making it the highest-priced fossil ever sold at auction—has been revealed. Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel, set a new auction record with this extraordinary purchase, according to CNBC. The stegosaurus skeleton, estimated to be 150 million years old from the late Jurassic period, has been named “Apex.”
Excavated in Colorado in May 2022, “Apex was born in America and is going to stay in America!” Griffin declared following the sale, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, which first identified him as the buyer.
Griffin secured the stegosaurus at a Sotheby’s auction in New York on Wednesday, where he outbid six other participants. The auction lasted 15 minutes, and the skeleton, which was initially anticipated to sell for around $6 million, was purchased for $44.6 million—11 times its lower estimate.
A frequent Republican donor, Griffin has an estimated net worth of $37.8 billion, according to Forbes. He is now considering loaning the fossil to a US institution.
According to Sotheby’s, Apex is the largest stegosaurus ever discovered, standing 11 feet (3.3 meters) tall and stretching 27 feet (8.2 meters) long. It is nearly complete, with 254 of its estimated 319 bones. Apex is 30 percent larger than “Sophie,” the most complete stegosaurus ever publicly displayed, which is located at the Natural History Museum in London.
