Elite university endowments have spent years shifting money out of public stocks and bonds and into private companies. At Harvard, that strategy just paid off in a big way, and a single rocke
Elite university endowments have spent years shifting money out of public stocks and bonds and into private companies. At Harvard, that strategy just paid off in a big way, and a single rocket company is a large part of the reason.
An endowment is the pool of donated money a university invests to help fund its operations.
Harvard’s is the largest in the world.
It grew to roughly $68 billion in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2026, according to the university’s annual financial report. That’s up $11.1 billion from $56.9 billion a year earlier.
Harvard Management Company, the in-house firm that runs the money, returned 27.1% after investment expenses. That more than doubles the previous year’s 11.9% and is the endowment’s best result since 2021.
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The clearest view of Harvard’s bets comes from its latest Form 13F.
That’s a quarterly filing in which large investors must list their U.S.-listed stock holdings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Harvard’s filing lists 12,935,100 Class A shares of Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX, valued at about $2.21 billion.
That’s more than all 18 of its other disclosed positions combined, which total about $2.05 billion. The next largest is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, at roughly $350 million.
The rest of the list leans heavily toward artificial intelligence (AI) and tech. It includes AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta.
Harvard also holds about $101 million in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust.
That’s an exchange-traded fund that tracks the price of Bitcoin, so investors can get exposure to the cryptocurrency without holding it directly. Harvard also owns about $171 million across two gold funds.
Harvard Management Company CEO N.P. Narvekar credits the year’s gains to venture capital, public equities and hedge funds.
In his letter in the report, he says the firm’s 2025 decision to open a San Francisco office has “aligned well with the extraordinary progress in artificial intelligence.”
The extra money comes with pressure. Starting in fiscal 2027, the federal tax on Harvard’s endowment income will rise from 1.4% to 8%, which Harvard estimates will cost about $300 million a year. Federally sponsored research revenue fell 20% during the year.
Harvard says it will hold its endowment payout flat next year.
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