Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy weighed in on Bill Ackman’s mounting feud with Business Insider over the outlet’s stories alleging the billionaire’s wife committed plagiarism in her academic works.
Ackman has launched a social media blitz on X, fuming that Business Insider’s global editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson perpetuated false claims about his spouse, Neri Oxman, in a note sent to staff.
Carlson had written that the publication “stands by” its two stories in question.
After Ackman’s post Tuesday, X owner Elon Musk responded: “I recommend a lawsuit.”
Portnoy chimed in: “I tried that. Won’t work cause of a– backwards laws [that] protect scum journalists.”
Portnoy famously sparred with the publication, then called Insider, over a “hit piece” that accused him of sexually assaulting women in 2021.
In a subsequent X post on Tuesday, Portnoy wrote, “this is like a bad dream seeing @BillAckman deal with the same bad actors and same exact s–t I went through.”
“Business Insider spend 18 months on my story and never once spoke to me,” added Portnoy, who went viral when he popped a bottle of champagne and chomped on a cigar to celebrate the departure Insider CEO Henry Blodget in November.
“To this day they have no answers for clear facts I presented dispelling all their lies,” said Portnoy, who sued the Axel Springer-owned news site in 2022 for publishing “false and defamatory” stories that quoted women who claimed that he assaulted them during sexual encounters — allegations he’s strongly denied ever since.
Portnoy’s lawsuit was dropped after a judge ruled that he failed to provide enough evidence proving Insider acted with “actual malice.”
Ackman began his feud against Business Insider on X last week after it published two separate stories: The first claiming that his wife plagiarized four paragraphs of her 330-page doctoral dissertation for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and the second alleging at least 28 other instances where the renowned academic ripped information from other sources without citation, including Wikipedia.
The billionaire founder of Pershing Square Capital Management has vehemently denied that Oxman is a plagiarist, pointing out that “MIT’s academic integrity handbook did not require citation or even mention Wikipedia until 2013, four years after Neri wrote her dissertation and used Wikipedia for the definitions of 15 words and/or terms.”
Ackman also questioned the motives behind BI’s reports — alleging that the editor of the stories is a “known anti-Zionist.”
“The Editor of the Investigative group of Business Insider who is leading the attack on my wife is John Cook,” Ackman posted to X on Sunday. “He is a known anti-Zionist. My wife is Israeli.”
In response, Axel Springer said it’s investigating the outlet’s “processes.”
However, both in Carlson’s company-wide memo and a statement issued by Axel Springer, it was stated that “the facts of the stories have not been disputed by Oxman or her husband Bill Ackman.”
“Mr. Carlson is lying or he has been misled by others,” Ackman fumed on Tuesday.
“I personally disputed the facts (as well as the reporting process) of Business Insider’s stories,” he added in a long-winded post that said his brawl with the outlet has caused “enormous reputational and emotional damage…to my wife @NeriOxman.”
“Neri hired counsel yesterday and it is going to take weeks to properly respond to all of the assertions and factual misstatements and errors in all of the stories,” Ackman shared.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Ackman will move forward in filing a lawsuit against BI or the parent company.
Representatives for Ackman at Pershing Square did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The Post has also sought comment from Barstool Sports and Business Insider.
