“Don’t Worry About Me”: Dalio Thanks ‘Supporters’, Slams WSJ’s “Lack Of Quality Control”

Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio’s feud with the Wall Street Journal stretches back to at least 2016, when WSJ reported that the world’s biggest hedge fund was trying to build an algorithmic model of its employees’ brains, a report that was vigorously denied by Dalio and Bridgewater.

But the paper’s latest long-form piece about Dalio and Bridgewater was especially scathing. Essentially, the paper accused Dalio of being a fraud who portrays himself as a champion of deliberate and hyperrational thought and debate, but is privately vindictive and intolerant of dissent and perceived disloyalty. And they didn’t even get into Dalio’s latest embarrassing virus-inspired flip-flop.

The billionaire hedge fund took to LinkedIn over the weekend to publish a screed lashing out at WSJ’s “fake and distorted” news.

Then on Monday morning, he followed that up with a series of tweets thanking his ‘supporters’ and asserting that he will be “fine”, in case anybody was worried about how he was handling this latest media dragging.

Thank you all for your overwhelming support and your understanding of my particular experience as a result of The Wall Street Journal’s lack of quality control. However, don’t worry about me as I will be fine. (1/4)

— Ray Dalio (@RayDalio) February 3, 2020

But just in case you were worried about Dalio, (for example, if you depend on his reputation for a paycheck), he’s arrived to insist that you shouldn’t worry about him. No, dear reader: what you should be worried about is the corrosive effect that all of this fake and distorted coverage has on society. Dalio’s case is but one example among thousands that transpire every day.

Worry about the state of media, the lack of controls on its quality, and what the resulting false or distorted news means for our society. My case is just one of thousands that transpire in the way I described. (2/4)

— Ray Dalio (@RayDalio) February 3, 2020

The main reason I wanted to draw your attention to it is because I’m in a position to describe this very typical case knowledgeably. I constantly hear of other similar cases that those involved are unwilling to publicly describe because… (3/4)

— Ray Dalio (@RayDalio) February 3, 2020

…they are afraid of the consequences and hope it will blow over. I hope more people will speak up so the problem will be more recognized. If it was more recognized, we might see the pendulum swing against bad journalism and back to more quality journalism. (4/4)

— Ray Dalio (@RayDalio) February 3, 2020

We wonder: Has Dalio spoken to the president lately? When was the last time he really ‘took the temperature of the room’ in Westport?

As much as I’m enjoying watching this ludicrous @raydalio vs @wsj feud from afar, I feel compelled to mention that people inside Bridgewater have been whispering about most of what was in that story for months but only on radically non-transparent background.

— Thornton McEnery (@ThorntonMcEnery) February 3, 2020

Either way, we’d like to welcome Ray to the party. We couldn’t have put it better ourselves. Though for somebody who’s worried about distorted media narratives, Dalio sure spends a lot of time on CNBC.