Amelia Pollard

whole new class of multimillionaires that didn't exist before.

And a lot of these people might have a lot of their wealth tied out into one stock if they worked for a company where they were paid in equity.

And so they're basically looking to diversify this whole thing.

So that's one big contributor.

I think there's a constant obsession among wealthy Americans of trying to lower their tax bills any way they can.

And these funds are really tapping into that desire.

But I imagine the strategy is also a bit controversial.

It is.

There's a few reasons.

One is that there are some people on Wall Street who believe that this could come under regulatory scrutiny.

And I should say everything these funds are doing, to my knowledge, is totally legal.

And so it's not a concern necessarily under this administration.

But there's some sense that if Democrats come back to the White House, this could be a potential target.

There's kind of like a more fundamental criticism, too, which is that, you know, this is just

a really effective way of lowering really rich Americans' tax bills.

You know, and so some people are critical of ways that rich investors and Americans are able to find ways to lower their tax bills.

And this is obviously one of the biggest tools they've been turning to recently.

Yeah.

So it's important to remember that hedge funds for a long time were not ever targeted towards richer, regular investors.

Hedge funds were always investment tools or vehicles used by endowments and pension funds, basically institutional investors who didn't need to worry about taxes because they weren't taxed.