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The only thing they seem to respond to is force. Listen, I think Israel has proven to be one of the most resilient countries in the world. The Democratic Party is in a very difficult position. Bill, I am very concerned about anti-Semitism. And it turned out that he was right, that there was a real problem.
Welcome everyone to another episode of " Western Spirit" here from Israel. I'm Ariel Whitman, and today I'm pleased to welcome a special guest, Bill Ackman. He is the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management and one of the most influential investors in the world. He's also one of the most influential personalities on Twitter X.
But he's also someone who sees the world in what I think is an interesting way. He is one of the most interesting thinkers in the world, but also a man who stood up for the Jewish people, for Western civilization and Western values. And he got a lot of hits for it. People with money and status like Bill don't necessarily get involved in such things.
And yet he put himself under attack and fought many great battles for what was right, especially after October 7, but not only. So I think you'll really enjoy this conversation. We talked about business, started with business, but moved on to discussing how the “Democratic Socialists of America” are taking over the Democratic Party.
We discussed Mayor Mdani and his madness, and then the " woke" right, Tucker Carlson, Charlie Kirk's conspiracy theories that Bill Ackman is part of something, and what really happened at the Hamptons road trip that all the conspiracy theorists were talking about. So I think you're all going to really enjoy this episode.
Bill Ackman, it is an honor and a true privilege to speak with you. Well , thank you for inviting me. So I want to start with current events where I am. The Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the US seems to be falling apart before our eyes. President Trump just said to NATO that he will probably bomb them again tonight .
How do you look at it, were you disappointed when President Trump seemed to stall when we had momentum? Maybe we could be done with them, and now we've given them time to organize, the economy, it seemed, maybe it's because of oil prices. What do you think was going on behind the scenes, and can you give your honest assessment of where we're headed next?
Well, let me start by saying that, in my opinion , this is, if I may say so, a just and important war. And I believe that everything from destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities to weakening the regime militarily is critically important for the world. Of course, there would be a regime change , and I think there have already been several regime changes there.
The problem is that every successive regime is part of the same, you know, evil ideology. But, you know, it seems to me that it is very difficult to achieve real regime change without, so to speak, the introduction of ground troops, and for the United States, that is unacceptable. And I think the president clearly understood that a deal was possible, and also that he didn't want this war to continue until the midterm elections.
Politically, life becomes more difficult for the president and the Republican Party, of course, if Congress changes course. So I think that's definitely on his mind. But ultimately , he's dealing with a party that can't keep its word, and to his credit, they've attacked us again, or a few ships, so the only thing they're responding to is force, and I think that's what's happening now.
Can I ask you one small thing about oil prices in this context? During the war, when oil prices were rising, many experts said it would be a long time before they fell, even if we stopped now. But then we saw that they went down sharply as soon as everything stopped. Now they are growing again because of what is happening.
So do you think this experiment shows us that we shouldn't worry too much about price spikes because they will fall pretty quickly when this is all over? Yes. In fact, people were talking about a huge, just huge surplus of oil, right? The world actually, the United States and other countries in the world, except for Iran, have actually started their production facilities , whether it's Venezuela or the United States or anyone else.
And, you know, I don't think this is going to go away anytime soon. And so, you know, the closing of the strait proved to people that you can't rely on oil going through the straits . We have to find other supply routes and other sources of oil, so I believe that any increase in oil prices is temporary, not a permanent or long-term phenomenon.
So don't panic too much. I think many people panicked, wondering what would happen next and what awaited us. I think that, as you said, turned out to be wrong. In fact, there are now fears that oil prices could fall too far. That's what's worrying people right now. That's right. OK. Now I want to talk to you about Israel.
So, you came here, I met you at the stock exchange when you came to ring the opening bell . It was very moving, and I think it touched many Israelis that someone like you has such confidence in our country during this crazy time. But what do you think about investing in Israel when the situation is so unstable?
You never know for sure. Iran could retaliate if President Trump attacks them tonight, just as they have done in Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain in the past 24 hours. So how do you think this affects you and other people who invest their money here? Look, I believe that Israel has proven itself to be one of the most resilient countries in the world , both militarily and economically .
And, you know, if you think about what's creating value in the world right now, it's technology, AI, cybersecurity, and defense, right? Defense technologies. I don't think there is a country that is better positioned than Israel in each of these areas. And I think you'll see more and more interesting startups growing incredibly fast in Israel.
I mean, the biggest disadvantage for Israel, as you might traditionally think from a military perspective, is that it's a tiny country, right? With a small population, but look what Ukraine was able to achieve through the use of drones. Even in the last week, it's been pretty impressive, and I'd say the war has finally tipped in their favor.
And I believe that Israel has similar capabilities. I don't think that's the point , now, you know, in a week, I don't know, about 35,000 Russian soldiers died. Human life is no longer about the size of the army, now the quality of technology is important. So I feel that Israel is extremely well positioned economically and militarily, and I think we are moving toward a safer Middle East because of Israel and, very importantly, because of President Trump, because finally someone besides Israel is taking the threat from Iran seriously.
So I give credit to President Trump and the American military, which, by the way, is another great opportunity for cooperation between Israel and the United States. The Secretary of Defense could not be more positive about the battlefield partnership with Israel. Do you think that people who have served hundreds of days in the reserves in the last three years—like I was in the infantry until I got sick and my eyesight prevents me from being in the field with a weapon, but my friends have served hundreds of days, many of them in the technology sector, and they work with laptops in the field, like guarding the borders of Lebanon or Gaza—do you think, from a business perspective, that if you become a CEO who wants to hire people, that gives you some advantage over other employees if you've been through that?
It's toughening, I've actually already emphasized that. I mean, you have one of the most resilient countries in the world , and a workforce that has been through military training—I would say good military training —is the best training for leadership, resilience, endurance, all of these things that are important in life and business, and that are taught in the military .
And so the last few years here have become a very good training ground for the next generation of talent. And, you know, Unit 8200 and other military units are known for their technological prowess. Today, when you decide to invest in a company, they list which divisions they worked in, and it becomes part of their resume for raising capital for new AI initiatives .
I have a question about the company that you seem to have founded and lead, and which went public this year . I would like to ask what it's like to see something you created from scratch reach such an important milestone, and how do you evaluate this experience now? Are you satisfied with the result?
How do you look at all this? Tell us a little about what exactly happened. Of course. We did something quite unusual. We took two companies public. Our business is managing investment funds. The structure of our business is such that the investment capital we manage is also placed in public companies.
So, today we essentially have three public companies. One of them is traded in London, and Pershing Square USA is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. There is also Howard Hughes Holdings , which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which is a more traditional corporation, a real estate business, which we are transforming, as they say, into a modern Berkshire Hathaway.
And each of these businesses pays us a fee for overseeing and managing them. In each case, we are a major investor in these companies. I am the largest investor in our London fund. We are also the largest investor in PSUS after its IPO. So this is our business model. As for the IPO itself, of course, building a business, going public, and being able to find out from the market how much it's worth is important.
This is a business that you started with virtually no capital. Today, Pershing Square's market cap is around $134 billion , and while that's not Nvidia's trillions, we're moving in the right direction . And this is a company that I believe can grow its value at a high rate over time, as the business grows along with the returns of our funds.
So the only downside, which creates opportunities for your viewers, if you will, is that Persian Square USA, our listing tool, for reasons I don't quite understand, is trading at a huge discount . Um, as of yesterday it is trading at a 21% discount to the value of its assets. And in terms of the assets we have, we have raised 5 billion in capital.
We deployed this capital, and you know, the volatility really helped us acquire shares in a very attractive market. Um, and these are businesses that we ourselves have admired for years, but they weren't cheap enough until recently. We have created a portfolio of companies that demonstrate some of the highest sustainable growth rates in the world.
These are businesses like Microsoft, Amazon, Uber, or Meta, for example. Um, and if you...we bought them at very attractive prices, and you can get them at a 21% discount to the price we paid when purchasing our investment instruments. This is my investment advice for the podcast. So guys, buy, and in general, the management company itself is also an extremely high- quality business.
And, you know, this is one of the few businesses in the world that can grow at a fairly high rate. It will grow faster than the returns of the funds we manage, because over time we will launch new funds. He does not need to reinvest capital. Therefore, he can leave, or rather, distribute the vast majority of his profits among shareholders.
Um, and it's like a royalty stream based on permanent capital that grows over time. And I think this model is quite interesting. So this is worth paying attention to. So, yes, I'm promoting a few of our promotions. But, you know, we really believe in them. I, you know, am the main shareholder, I own about 45% of Persian Square.
And I invested $250 million during the PSUS IPO. So this was not a liquidity event. It was something of a reverse liquidity event. Most people consider an IPO to be an event that provides liquidity. For us, it was a way to take the companies public, raise capital for this new fund, and make an additional investment in ourselves in a way.
OK. So, one of the things that people I'm going to be talking to soon have been telling me is, is he the new Warren Buffett, because Buffett is going and handing over Berkshire Hathaway to the next generation, so to speak? So how would you respond to this comparison, and perhaps say a few words about how you see the future of Berkshire Hathaway after Warren Buffett and what place they will occupy in the business world.
So, Warren Buffett was and remains an important hero of mine. I would call him my informal mentor. You know, I got into this business largely because I was inspired by studying Warren Buffett when I was in my early twenties. I have literally read almost everything he has written and probably watched every YouTube video or other recording where he has appeared.
I attended many annual meetings and had the opportunity to spend some time with him throughout my career. And it's very useful in life to have great mentors, and he became an incredible example for me. So it was always an aspiration, I said to myself: what is my goal as an investor? Well, I would like to have better results than Buffett.
But one of the things that makes it difficult is he ran Berkshire for 60 years, he's 95, and I'm 60 . So, to match that result, I have 35 years...I think Warren Buffett's genius is that he established a list of principles that he followed despite all the difficulties. He increased Berkshire's capital by 20% annually for 60 years, which led to truly impressive results.
So we learned a lot from him. I would say that our approach is not identical. Of course, there are certain similarities. We have an instrument called Howard Hughes Holdings, another cheap stock worth watching, where we are CEOs and follow the Berkshire "playbook." What did Buffett do? He bought a textile company that was in decline.
Over time, he liquidated it, withdrew cash, sold off assets, various parts of the business, real estate, and so on. And he took this capital and over time bought an insurance company, a bank, and several other businesses. But the main business was insurance. And he did something different: he focused on running a very profitable insurance company, although of course every insurance company strives to be profitable.
But he also focused on the asset side of the balance sheet: Instead of investing only in fixed-income securities, as the vast majority of insurance companies do, he invested in common stocks. Uh, and he was a good investor in common stocks. So when you hear that Buffett is buying Apple, it's actually Buffett's insurance companies buying Apple.
So what we created at Howard Hughes— we didn't start with textile manufacturing. We started with a real estate company. And the real estate company itself is gradually being liquidated over time, as we sell plots to developers . This is a big part of the business. We generate cash from the net operating income of our, uh, real estate.
We build condominiums and sell them. We generate money from this . Instead of reinvesting all of that money in real estate, as the company has done historically, we're taking that money, and the first asset we bought was an insurance company— last month we acquired a company called Vantage. Uh, and we're going to run Vantage pretty much the same way Buffett runs insurance operations.
We took, uh, you know, we take the insurer's reserves and invest them in very low-risk investments— U.S. Treasury bonds, short-term Treasury bills—and the rest of the assets, the surplus, we invest in common stocks. So our goal is to turn Howard Hughes into a capitalization machine, uh, similar to Berkshire over time.
We borrowed the idea from Mr. Buffett, and we'll see how it goes, but, you know, 35 years is just the length of the track record. Um , one of the things, the big debates that's been going on for the last , I would say, four or five years in particular, is... is there an AI industry, or is it actually a bubble?
And I wanted to ask your opinion on this. The AI stocks that you mentioned...um, a few, I think we mentioned a few of them at the beginning, maybe not, but they...they've just been going up over the last, I guess, maybe four or five years . Some stocks fall, others rise. Okay, better yet: is this an AI bubble, or should we dismiss it?
What is your opinion on this? So, look, I think there are different levels in the value chain, if you can put it that way, you know? There is a base level, a technology level , hyperscalers, data centers, and it seems to me that the demand for computing power is almost infinite. So I think if you're Microsoft or Amazon, or even Meta, SpaceX, and you have the infrastructure layer of AI, you'll be fine.
And it seems, judging by the deals recently announced by SpaceX , that the payback period for data center investments is still very high. And we hear, you know, I'm a pretty active venture capitalist myself. We hear from smaller companies that they have difficulty accessing computing power. So I do n't think there's any kind of "bubble" here.
I believe that the demand for computing will be truly infinite because intelligence is something that people are willing to invest in. Next come companies dealing with advanced models. OpenAI or Anthropic level. I read an article this morning about Anthropic having, I don't know, billion dollar profit quarters.
It's interesting because the OpenAI story, you know, seemed like a story of endless losses. I would be more worried about a business that generates huge losses and has to constantly raise capital than one that has become profitable. I think the threat to companies like Anthropic and OpenAI is open models from China and elsewhere.
It seems that SpaceX is actually going to release a new model in the near future. But these models are almost as good as the high-end models that people pay big money for. I hear stories about companies where they didn't control employee spending, and they wake up thinking they spent their $500 million budget on tokens in one quarter, even though they should have spread it out over a year.
People use the most powerful models, like Claude, to decide where to go for dinner, you know? This is not a particularly efficient use of resources. So I'm a little worried about the business model of the developers of advanced models. Since open source models are becoming so high quality, I think for the vast majority of cases, prompts, etc., a free or ad-supported model will be better, it will provide everything you need.
So I'm worried, you know, maybe about the world's eyes being open. I think it's a more complicated kind...But listen, is it a bubble? I don't think the investments that Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are making in computing power will turn out to be wasteful bets. I think they will get very attractive returns on these investments.
And, you know, in the private markets you see companies whose valuations are growing massively quarter after quarter. You know, I just don't have enough information to know for sure. Because very little information is available about these companies. Last question about the economy. Every few weeks I read an article, and this is, as a newbie—I'm not a stock market expert— but every time we read an article that says we're headed for disaster.
A few weeks go by, everything is supposed to collapse, then the expert turns out to be wrong, and they just move on to the next expert who says the same thing a few months later. And I remember when I was there in 2008, there were people like that, but this time they turned out to be right. So they became famous.
But how do you view all these gloomy forecasts? And what do you think the general outlook is on whether the stock market will just continue to rise? It's a futile endeavor to predict what the stock market will do in the short term, isn't it? But that doesn't stop many people from making such predictions, because People forget what prediction they made, and in the end you turn out to be right and become a hero.
If you say the market is going to crash and it crashes next week, you can...people make careers out of it. We take a fairly fundamental approach. Um, if you look at, uh, the earnings outlook review for the S&P 500, you know, the trajectory of the market's earnings, how it beat initial expectations at the beginning of the year.
Analysts are pretty aggressively raising their earnings forecasts for the S&P 500. And so when people look at the multiple today, I don't even know, well, 21 something, something like that. And you know, historically the market has typically had a P/E ratio of around 17, and now it's maybe 21. People say, "Oh, it's overvalued." But I would say that the structure of the business, the composition of the S&P 500 index is completely different now than it was 30 years ago.
We have big companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, the largest companies that make up a significant portion of the index, and they are growing very quickly in both revenue and earnings, so they deserve much higher valuations. And I actually think a lot of the "Big Seven" stocks are actually pretty cheap, right?
Microsoft appears to be trading at nearly its lowest historical earnings multiples; The same goes for Amazon. So I don't see any fundamental reason for the stock market to crash tomorrow, you know? Ultimately, the stock doesn't look particularly overvalued. That's good to hear, and we can find a lot of undervalued, very high-quality companies with long-term, sustainable growth.
And usually, when you can find such companies, it's not the best time to fall. Of course, there are sectors of the market—people in general are quite passionate about semiconductors, memory, chips, etc.—that have skyrocketed in price. But such businesses are more difficult to predict in the long term .
Therefore, we can expect significant revaluations and declines in those parts of the market that have shown very, very good results. So, Bill, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in a Jewish family. I don't look like that, but I , you know, wore all that uniform in Brooklyn, in Crown Heights, and we see—I mean, it's not about personalities, after all, it's economics, because people who call themselves democratic socialists are actually, to me, in many ways communists.
They use all this Marxist phraseology verbatim: us against them, poor against rich, seizure of the means of production. Yes, definitely. And it started with the mayor of New York , Mr. Adams. But then it spread down below, I think, to Dan Goldman, right where I used to live, near Park Slope. So Dan Goldman lost to a crazy socialist, who, by the way, is Jewish.
We can talk about it. And then there was this woman who literally wrote in one of the organizations that one of the goals was to destroy Western civilization. It's impossible to make this up, but they are taking over one of the major parties in the US . Why do you think this is happening in the first place, and how concerned are you?
You know, these victories in New York are, of course, very disturbing, but they are made possible by elections with very low turnout, where a relatively small part of the population is sufficiently inspired. This is an educated white population, a sort of upper middle class, in some cases, believe it or not, a Jewish population.
I would call them disappointed college graduates, where, you know, one of the big mistakes we've made is this whole phenomenon of student loans, where the government subsidizes everything, providing 100% funding for kids to go to college . There was no restriction on colleges raising tuition. You know, the cost of higher education has increased significantly over time .
Accordingly, the loan amounts required for college have also increased significantly over time. You're 18 years old, and they say, "Look, sign this piece of paper, and you can go to college, don't worry about the borrowed money ." And you graduate with $150,000 in debt, or whatever , sometimes even more.
And if you go to medical school, it might be 300 thousand or so. Well, and you don't have one, and you're saddled with this debt, and maybe you didn't get the job you wanted; You know, the job market is changing, AI, etc., and you, well, you know, the system isn't working for you. And here you have this charming candidate like Mandami, who's very well- spoken, very charismatic, and he says, "Hey, we have an affordability problem in New York, let's freeze rents, let's make buses free, let's make supermarkets cheaper." Um, and you know, a lot of universities have raised their students to believe that socialism isn't really that bad.
And uh, it doesn't take much, you know, in an election where 15% of the city votes, you know, eight percentage points of voters can elect a candidate. So , you know, the Democratic Party is getting carried away, if you will, or starting to get carried away, and, you know, the Democratic Party is in a really bad state right now.
I think that upper management is simply a disaster. Um, and they support all sorts of crazy policies regarding, you know, boys, men, and women's sports. Um, you know, all these different things that I think are very far from where the country is right now. And so, um, you know, socialists use the democratic machine, if you will, to get into office, but they're not democrats .
It's a bit like the National Socialists . Good. They were Nazis, you know. Yes. That's right. But can I ask what you think about the fact that it seems like the entry fee for the party at the moment is to be anti-Israel? So you have a very left-wing candidate, Goldman, who appears to have been the prosecutor during the first impeachment of President Trump.
He is not " good" enough for them because he does not say that Israel should simply be wiped off the map of the world . And that's what it is, like, it's like a membership fee: you have to speak out against Israel. This seems to be the new, left-wing progressive " wok" threshold of entry. Unfortunately, it's true, you have guys like Ro Khanna, I don't know if you've been following his e...
Yeah. His trajectory, but I, I don't think these guys are showing themselves in any way , and I hope the country comes to its senses, you know, in the run-up to the midterms... elections, and we had this guy in Maine who was... You know, Nazi tattoo, all kinds of rape allegations, crazy stuff, racist language, and the party supported him because he, you know, got traction, and they only dropped him when a Democrat said he raped her.
I mean, the Democratic Party has become a disaster, and it's just a shame. I think it's important for a country to have two, at least two. We need to have more than two parties, they need to be viable, strong, and nominate convincing candidates. But the Democrats, as we say, are going down the drain.
Two more quick questions, Bill, before I let you go, because I know your time is very valuable. The first is a mirror image of what we describe on the left, what many would call perhaps the " woke-right." And this is relevant to me now because two days ago the trial of Charlie Kirk's killer began, preliminary hearings, I think that's what they're called.
And many of these people, first of all, hate Jews, and second of all , they used the murder of Charlie Kirk to essentially persecute many Jews, including you. But also Israel, claiming that you and Israel had something to do with this conspiracy and all that kind of stuff. And, in fact, in the first two days of the trial, almost all the conspiracy theories turned out to be lies.
But the fact that they thought it would bring them clicks, fame, and popularity, I think proves that there may be a problem on the right wing as well. Can you talk a little bit about what you think about this and the fact that your name was involved in all of this? So, I met Charlie Kirk later in his life.
You know, admired this guy, a really brilliant man, I loved what he did on campuses, and, you know, he was a great supporter of Israel and the Jewish people in general. And he himself approached me , and he expressed concern about this very issue. He said, “Listen, let’s get together, the younger generation of conservative social media influencers, and let’s talk about a lot of things that concern me: Why is the marriage rate dropping?
Why don't people have children? You know, the economy." He wanted me to do a panel discussion on economics and said, "Let's also talk about Israel, let's have a frank conversation about it." So, we organized it in Bridgehampton, at a hotel. And by " organized" I meant that we paid for people's travel and hotel accommodations.
I thought it was worth noting, and actually just came to listen. Unfortunately, at the council meeting, I missed the session on Israel, but you know, there were people there that I know well, there was a lot of discussion, but no one criticized Charlie for supporting Israel. In fact, the younger generation is frankly tired of talking about Israel.
That was one of the things they voiced. And after that, you know, I thought it would be a great opportunity to spend a day and a half with Charlie. We agreed to meet up and spend more time together. But neither I nor anyone else ever threatened him. And he was certainly concerned about, as you say, the "vouk-right ." Yes.
What do you think about what they use, for example, murder? What do you think, is this... This is madness. This is madness. And I think the advantage of this trial is that it helps to disprove many conspiracy theories. Yes. OK. I want to ask you one last thing before I let you go. So, Benjamin Netanyahu is being used, even though I didn't vote for any of the coalition parties.
I'm saying this right away so people don't accuse me of justifying him. But I want to hear your opinion. Many American Jewish Democrats told me when I was in the US for shows and interviews that they believed it was Benjamin Netanyahu who destroyed bipartisan support for Israel. If Netanyahu had behaved differently, if he had been less confrontational when speaking to Congress during Obama's first deal on the Iranian nuclear program, and had been friendlier to the left wing, supporting Israel would have been easier.
As a person who survived October 7, what do you think? Objectively, after October 7, this should not have been an issue at all , because they were attacking not Netanyahu, but all of Israel. So, how would you, is there any truth in your view of this conversation? Listen, I think the problem for Netanyahu is that the coalition includes people like Smatrich, Ben-Gvir, etc., who I think are very damaging with their extremist statements and policies on everything from Gaza to the West Bank.
The fact that they are part of the administration, so to speak, is what I consider Netanyahu's biggest problem; it damages his reputation and the reputation of Israel. And their statements are ultimately widely quoted and used to tarnish the country's reputation. And, you know, if Netanyahu had a broad coalition that was more moderate.
I think he could be more effective in building better relationships with a broader range of Americans. Thank you very much, Bill. I was just thinking, while you were talking, that on the stock exchange you told a very interesting story about your father and why all these topics are so important to you.
Can you remind me? I don't remember exactly, but I think he told you two things before he died that were important. Do I remember correctly? Well, he wrote me a few letters, three letters before he died. One said, "Take care of your mom, call her every day," which means...by the way, I have to call her.
I have n't talked to her yet today. He also left instructions regarding funeral and financial matters. But the third letter was about : "Bill, I'm very concerned about anti-Semitism." "I don't think you're doing enough to solve this problem, and you should do more." My father attended every quarterly meeting of the Pershing Square Foundation, and he felt that we were not doing enough to combat anti-Semitism.
And I said: "Dad, everything is great with the Jews." "I don't see any anti-Semitism." This was before he died in May 2022 . And he turned out to be right that there was a real problem. So . So finally, I want to say how much we appreciate you and how much I personally appreciate you. I told you when we met in Tel Aviv how I lost my sight six or seven years ago, and I've read a lot of books about entrepreneurs and people like you who don't give up and probably don't fall into a victim mode because it's so easy.
Especially today's college students—they're very, very self- pitying, and that leads to what we were talking about. And I believe that it is people like you who should be heroes, not many others. So I appreciate everything you do, and thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us. I really appreciate it.
Well, look, I'm really sorry about your loss of vision. This is what I am focused on right now as a problem that needs to be solved. And, by the way, there are a lot of interesting things happening in the field of neurocomputer interfaces right now. Last night I had dinner with a man named Ben Rapaport.
He runs a company called Precision Neuroscience, he was one of the founders of Neuralink but left to pursue what he believes is better technology. I talked to Elon about vision, and he's very confident that in the near future we'll have a primitive solution, but in five years people will have bionic vision.
So I think you have hope, you know, Elon is not always precise in his time frames. But, actually, I now have a family member who has similar vision problems. Uh-huh. And what happened to this family member, if I may ask? So, my daughter had a brain hemorrhage about five months ago, and she was, so to speak, unconscious for 15 hours before we found her.
It happened in her apartment in the morning, I wrote to her, called her, but didn't get a response, but I didn't worry until none of us could reach her by phone. She was in very serious condition, and we are working on her rehabilitation. Actually, I'm on Zoom from the hospital right now. I'm in ward number one, you know, I'm in the room next to her.
And she woke up, unable to... ...walk, speak, or see. And you know, she's walking again, making progress . She begins to say her first words again. We performed a groundbreaking procedure: we injected her own mitochondria into her eyes. She is the first patient, and she has already partially recovered her vision in both eyes, and we will continue these injections.
There is a lot of interesting work, but I can better understand your personal challenge and admire you for moving forward. I tell her every day: honey, just make small progress every day. If she wants to contact me, I can give her a lot of advice. By the way, my illness is a mitochondrial disease. Brain cells that connect the brain to the eye die due to a mitochondrial mutation.
You said " mitochondria". Most people today don't even know what it is. So I thought: oh, he knows. This... by the way, there are several Israeli companies working in this area. Are you in contact with them? Yes, but for now for my mutation and specific disease. Actually, there is nothing . There was a study on coronavirus at Emerson University, but the professor who conducted it died, and there was no one else who would consider it appropriate.
The study is over, it was gene therapy: they create a synthetic mitochondria, inject it into the eye, and it seems to revive the cells. In any case, it's been seven years since it started. So the cells have almost completely disappeared. I can see 10-15% with my left eye , depending on lighting, fatigue, and other things.
It all depends on all this research. We'll see. Hopefully something will emerge within the next decade, but so far it has n't. Hopefully sooner. This is an area that we are very interested in, we are working on it, and... so if you hear anything , let me know. Necessarily. Thank you, Bill, and Rafi to your daughter— we wish her a speedy recovery.
Tell her that we are all rooting for her and for you. Thank you very much again. Thank you. Very grateful.
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