Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin paid $44.6 million for a late-Jurassic stegosaurus at Sotheby’s on Wednesday, making it the most valuable fossil ever sold at auction.
The 150-million-year-old dinosaur, nicknamed “Apex,” was only expected to sell for up to $6 million, according to a preauction listing from Sotheby’s. Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel, plans to lend the skeleton to other institutions for display, with intent to keep it in the United States, The New York Post reported.
Apex was excavated near present-day Dinosaur, Colorado, in May 2022. The previous record for a fossil at auction was the $31.8 million sale of a T. rex skeleton named Stan in 2020 to the Abu Dhabi government’s culture and tourism department.
Griffin reportedly beat out six other bidders for Apex. The auctioneer to lead Wednesday’s event was Phyllis Kao, a vice president of client strategy for Sotheby’s.
“The winning bidder making a very late entrance was dramatic,” Kao told The New York Times. “And that’s not common, for someone to wait for so long.”