Ken Griffin says that CEOs aligned to implore Trump for pricing exemptions are “foul -smelling”
Ken Griffin was a critical friend of the White House since President Trump won the Oval office. Griffin, the CEO of Citadel ($ 400 and more than a billion assets under management), was opened to the fact that he voted for Trump in the elections last year and would do what he could to support the administration, but warned the president on certain policies during the months that followed.
This included the Warning of the White House against the intervention too closely with the Central Bank policy and the possibility of raising questions about certain aspects of the pricing policy. And this is where the billionaire of hedge funds raised other questions this week, which clearly indicates that he does not think that preferential treatment should be shown to the largest American companies.
Trump clearly said that support for American business will be the central theme of his second presidency and surrounded himself with some of the most notable names in the economy. This included bringing Tesla CEO Elon Musk to the White House to lead the Government Effectiveness Department (DOGE), and have Amazon Jeff Bezos frames, Mark Zuckerberg de Meta and Sundar Pichai D’Alphabet in the forefront of his oath in ceremonies.
The rotating door of the magnificent 7 CEOs which crosses the White House is perhaps to be expected with a businessman from the oval office, but Griffin warned a potential preferential treatment for certain companies should not be encouraged.
“I talked about my concerns about the capitalism of cronyism if we go down on the way of the prices. The line outside the White House of each company by asking why they should be exempt from paying prices on what they import in their products are foul -smelling,” said Griffin to CNBC in an interview published today.
Griffin, worth 50.5 billion dollars according to ForbesApple companies should not obtain exemptions from prices despite the number of Americans buy them. “100% no,” he said. “We will simply promote large and connected companies in America?” Is it our country, that we will promote big and connected? This is not American history. ”
The White House has indeed announced that certain Apple products will be exempt from certain prices, a decision that has sent its stock market after investors are worried about how the company MAG7 is in pricing policy. Chipmaker Nvidia also scored a few victories, after agreeing with the White House, she will share part of her income in exchange for being able to sell advanced fleas in China.
Griffin added that he had “nothing against Tim Cook”, explaining: “Tim Cook does what he as CEO should do towards his shareholders, but when the state is involved in the selection of winners and losers, there is only one way to finish this game. We all lose.”
There is also the question of how future administrations could see the companies that have become so deeply rooted with the Trump team. Would a future Democratic president, for example, seek the size of a company which, according to them, has received preferential treatment in the past?
“Now you will find yourself, if you are in disgrace with the next administration, what will you ask you to pay to do business abroad?” Asked Griffin. “With each administration, will you find the American companies that should conclude new transactions with a new administration on their conditions and their commercial transactions abroad?”
The question of equity
Trump marks victories for his agreements with the largest companies in the world. Apple increased its American investment commitment in August to $ 600 billion, confirming plans to hire some 20,000 people to work in R&D, silicon engineering, software development and AI and automatic learning over the next four years.
Meanwhile, SoftBank, Openai, Oracle and MGX are initial equity partners in the Stargate project, a company that will invest $ 500 billion over the next four years to build a new IA – ARM, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle and Openai infrastructure are the main initial technological partners.
Indeed, Altman praised the president’s rapid approach to build infrastructure, telling the press this week: “This administration was ideal for construction. I mean, look at the speed at which we are now able to build infrastructure, and I think the president understands and the values really. ”
And while booming affairs for some of the largest companies in the United States can mean good things for humans in the street – more jobs in a weakening labor market one of them – Griffin has taken care to frame the conversation of prices around equity.
He said: “We bring money, remember … in some directions, it is a national sales tax, and the impact of the tax is therefore disproportionately on the lower class and the middle class.
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