MR. & MRS. MOONSHOT

Billionaire Gives $220 Million to Make Us More Like Elite Athletes

After recently plunking down $157.5 million on two massive Manhattan pads.

Joe Tsai, the Brooklyn Nets owner and Alibaba Group cofounder, is giving $220 million together with his wife, Clara, to help scientists study the biology behind elite performance. On Wednesday, their foundation unveiled the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, a collaboration between six hospitals, universities, and institutions. “Scientific funding has traditionally been focused on the study of diseases,” said Clara Wu Tsai in a statement. “We are taking the opposite approach and studying the human body at its healthiest and most vital.”

It’s a nice reset to the news cycle for Tsai. On Tuesday, he was revealed as the buyer of two massive apartments at 220 Central Park South in Manhattan, for which he paid a combined $157.5 million. Somehow, that’s not the most expensive purchase in the building’s history. Hedge funder Ken Griffin paid $238 million for a quadplex in 2019.