\n<\/p>\n
Weeks after Donald Trump\u2019s first shock election win, bosses from across corporate America were scrambling to enter the president\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n
Business leaders ranging from the General Motors boss, Mary Barra, to Disney\u2019s chief, Bob Iger, quickly signed up to a new advisory council in 2016 to help shape the aggressively pro-growth policies of this new populist politician. Among them was the head of America\u2019s largest bank: Jamie Dimon, the chair and chief executive of JP Morgan.<\/p>\n
Dimon\u2019s name alone was a boon to Trump\u2019s nascent political credibility. Easily the biggest name on Wall Street, Dimon \u2013 now 69 and paid $43m last year \u2013 was feted for steering JP Morgan through the 2008 banking crisis and on to enviable financial success.<\/p>\n
Rumours were also swirling that the executive would be tapped to serve in Trump\u2019s administration. And while Dimon, a lifelong Democrat, reportedly turned down an offer to lead the US Treasury department, the pair continued to be on surprisingly good terms. \u201cI\u2019d try to help any president of the US because I\u2019m a patriot,\u201d Dimon told shareholders. Even Vanity Fair commented on Dimon\u2019s \u201cunbridled optimism\u201d despite the new president\u2019s growing list of gaffes.<\/p>\n
A decade on, the pair\u2019s relationship has hit rock bottom.<\/p>\n
<\/span>The JP Morgan Chase building in New York.<\/span> Photograph: Justin Lane\/EPA<\/p>\n Trump on Thursday took aim at his one-time ally, launching a $5bn (\u00a33.7bn) lawsuit against JP Morgan and Dimon over claims the bank had unfairly closed his accounts for political reasons after the 6 January Capitol riots in 2021. JP Morgan said that while it closed accounts that created legal or regulatory risk for the bank, the lawsuit itself \u201chas no merit\u201d.<\/p>\n While this may not be the absolute end of the relationship between the billionaires, there were signs their once-affable relationship could become rocky even from the start of Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n Back in 2017, months after Trump\u2019s first inauguration, Dimon said he had disagreed with, but tolerated, Trump\u2019s controversial decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement. But he drew a line after Trump failed to denounce white supremacists who took part in a violent and fatal rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the summer of 2017.<\/p>\n The economic advisory council, which counted General Motors, Walmart, and Disney bosses among its top brass, quickly disbanded in response. \u201cIt is a leader\u2019s role, in business or government, to bring people together, not tear them apart,\u201d Dimon said.<\/p>\n <\/span>Dimon at the recent World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.<\/span> Photograph: Denis Balibouse\/Reuters<\/p>\n Personal tensions between the pair also escalated. Dimon, addressing speculation over his own presidential ambitions, told a panel in New York in late 2018: \u201cI think I could beat Trump \u2026 because I\u2019m as tough as he is, I\u2019m smarter than he is.\u201d He added: \u201cAnd by the way, this wealthy New Yorker actually earned his money. It wasn\u2019t a gift from daddy.\u201d<\/p>\n Regret for his comments did not appease Trump, who responded online that Dimon did not have the \u201captitude or \u2018smartness\u2019 & is a poor public speaker & nervous mess\u201d.<\/p>\n Still, the two had common ground. Despite their personal friction, Dimon made positive sounds about Trump\u2019s tax cuts and nascent China trade deal, just months before the ground was laid for this week\u2019s big lawsuit. But the shocking Capitol riots prompted swift condemnation from bosses including Dimon \u2013 and, Trump claims, resulted in the unfair closure of his JP Morgan bank accounts. The row is reminiscent of the dispute between Nigel Farage and NatWest in the UK, which ultimately led to the departure of the bank\u2019s chief executive, Alison Rose.<\/p>\n Those simmering tensions boiled over into Trump\u2019s second presidential run. \u201cHighly overrated Globalist Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMORGAN, is quietly pushing another non-Maga person, Nikki Haley, for President,\u201d Trump said in a post on Truth Social in late November 2023. \u201cI\u2019ve never been a big Jamie Dimon fan \u2026 I guess I don\u2019t have to live with him any more, and that\u2019s a really good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Dimon has warned about the risks of Trump\u2019s continued undermining of Federal Reserve independence and of its chair, Jerome Powell.<\/span> Photograph: Richard Drew\/AP<\/p>\n But until this month, the war of words between Trump and Dimon seemed to be on pause. Despite market turmoil triggered by Trump\u2019s unpredictable trade and tariff policies, banks such as JP Morgan have been largely appeased. The president\u2019s bonfire of regulation was widely welcomed, as was capitulation to Wall Street\u2019s longstanding campaign for looser capital rules.<\/p>\n However, Trump\u2019s sustained attacks on the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell \u2013 which have culminated in a highly controversial Department of Justice criminal investigation \u2013 proved a step too far.<\/p>\n Dimon publicly backed Powell earlier this month, telling reporters that the widely condemned investigation was putting the central bank\u2019s independence at risk. \u201cAnd anything [that] chips away at that is probably not a great idea, and in my view, will have the reverse consequences. It\u2019ll raise inflation expectations and probably increase [interest] rates over time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Policies that threaten JP Morgan\u2019s profit margins, such as Trump\u2019s plans for a 10% cap on US credit card interest rates, have also drawn Dimon\u2019s ire.<\/p>\n But Trump has continued to throw blows: \u201cI think it\u2019s fine what I\u2019m doing,\u201d Trump said. He called Powell \u201ca bad Fed person\u201d who had \u201cdone a bad job\u201d and again called for lower rates.<\/p>\n \u201cJamie Dimon probably wants higher rates. Maybe he makes more money that way,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n At the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, Dimon warned that AI could cause civil unrest and was critical of Trump\u2019s interest rates cap proposal, calling the idea a potential \u201ceconomic disaster\u201d.<\/p>\n He also suggested that the US had become less reliable under Trump. \u201cIf you said to me: \u2018Has America become unreliable?\u2019 No,\u201d Dimon said at an event. \u201cIt\u2019s just, you had total reliance, and now it\u2019s less reliable.\u201d A day later, Trump launched his lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Weeks after Donald Trump\u2019s first shock election win, bosses from across corporate America were scrambling to enter the president\u2019s orbit. Business leaders ranging from the General Motors boss, Mary Barra, to Disney\u2019s chief, Bob Iger, quickly signed up to a new advisory council in 2016 to help shape the aggressively pro-growth policies of this new<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1378,5369,752,1120,1035,964,70,12176,1034,81,71],"class_list":{"0":"post-42577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-americas","9":"tag-banking","10":"tag-biggest","11":"tag-boss","12":"tag-bottom","13":"tag-donald","14":"tag-hit","15":"tag-relations","16":"tag-rock","17":"tag-trump","18":"tag-trumps"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}