An early morning panel pitted economist Nouriel Roubini, nicknamed Dr. Doom for having forecast the economic crisis, against Peter Schiff, chief investment officer of Euro Pacific Capital, who said the Federal Reserve's easy money policy merely reflated asset bubbles.
As the debate grew more heated, former Fed Governor Laurence Meyer, who was moderating the panel, loudly commented on the strange turn, noting that the politicians were getting along while the economists were fighting.
The discord over where markets are going and what policy makers may do next has made for uneven trading conditions this year. The average hedge fund manager is up only 0.9 percent, barely flat this year, after two months of back-to-back losses, something that revived grousing among some investors about the industry's notoriously high fees.
All the same, investors from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the San Antonio Fire & Police Pension fund, Williams College, and the Sidney E. Frank Foundationamong others were still taking meetings with hedge fund managers small and large to gauge what the next big trade might be.
Launched at the height of the financial crisis in 2009 by SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci, the so-called SALT Conference quickly established itself as the industry's most important conference. This year they can rub shoulders with Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Barack Obama, former Treasury Secretary and former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers and Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey.
In past years Scaramucci, who likes to call himself a middle-class kid from Long Island - albeit one with a Harvard Law degree - invited former Presidents who came. This year "we actually got into the White House" by getting Valerie Jarrett to come," he said.
At other moments, some of the wealthy hedge fund managers and executives, often vilified as the "1 percent", underscored their charitable giving.
Kenneth Langone, co-founder of Home Depot and chairman of the trustees of New York University Medical Center, said his dream was to raise enough money, some $600 million more, to allow students at New York University Medical School to attend for free.
For his part, Tepper said he donated enough money in 2008, when his fund was suffering through double-digit losses, to make sure food banks and soup kitchens in New Jersey, where he lives, were always stocked.
Asked whether he believes in good karma, Tepper said: "Are you ... kidding me? Of course I believe in that," noting that in the five-year period since then his fund has performed better than ever.