Please take out your tiniest violin:
“A difficult time to invest.”
“Everybody’s paralyzed.”
“I’m sorry I can’t be particularly positive.”
“The chaos that is reigning right now is causing everyone to sit on their hands.”
That’s Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, ON Semiconductor CEO Hassane El-Khoury, Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson, and Nasdaq Private Market CEO Tom Callahan on the world of Donald Trump right now. Their comments over the past week capture a growing disquiet among business leaders, a month into a presidency that many of them had cheered.
Griffin is a prolific GOP donor, giving over $100 million last cycle. He gave $30 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm. That was more than a quarter of the $116.5 million it raised.
Speaking at a conference last month, Griffin said, “From my vantage point, the bombastic rhetoric, the damage has already been done. It's a huge mistake to resort to this form of rhetoric when you're trying to drive a bargain, because it sears into the minds of CEOs and policymakers that ‘we can't depend upon America as our trading partner.’”
Franklin Templeton is an investment firm with $1.5 trillion in assets. In January, at Davos, Johnson told Bloomberg TV, “I think the view is that he’s going to be good for the economy and that therefore is good for both public and private markets.” And like so many Trump apologists, at the time she brushed off Trump’s tariff threats. Bloomberg reported, “Speaking on the president’s threats to impose tariffs on Mexico and Canada, Johnson said Trump has consistently used the negotiating tactic of making broad statements and following up with a more practical approach.”
Imagine thinking that Trump ever used a “practical approach.”
Johnson’s father is Charles B. Johnson, the former CEO of Franklin Resources, and he appears to have been plenty active last year as well, donating to conservative candidates and causes. Jenny Johnson seemingly donated some pocket change to Democratic candidates, but she has also praised Elon Musk’s “efforts to fix the budget deficit and bring down Treasury yields,” according to The New York Times.
Elon Musk
Another CEO warning about Trump’s devastating policies is Ford CEO Jim Farley: “Let's be real honest: Long term, a 25% tariff across the Mexico and Canada borders would blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we've never seen. … Frankly, it gives free rein to South Korean, Japanese and European companies that are bringing 1.5 million to 2 million vehicles into the U.S. that wouldn't be subject to those Mexican and Canadian tariffs. It would be one of the biggest windfalls for those companies ever."
Not to worry, Farley! Trump will likely tariff those other auto imports as well, inviting further retaliatory tariffs from those countries, blowing even more holes in the U.S. industry! What a return on the $1 million Ford gave Trump for his inauguration, right?
The White House is sure sounding defensive too.
“There isn’t a serious CEO in America who would prefer the disastrous, negative-growth policies of the previous administration over the pro-growth, low-tax, and low-regulation policies of President Trump,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields told Semafor. “In just four weeks, more than $1 trillion in private investment has flowed back into our country, and that’s a direct result of the Trump Effect, which is laying out the welcome mat for investment.”
That number is bunk. It includes a $500 billion Apple investment that, by all indications, is routine for Apple and would likely be happening no matter who was in the White House. It also includes a supposed $500 billion investment regarding artificial intelligence that even Musk laughed off. And of course, growth was positive under Biden, and now it’s seemingly veering negative under Trump. So there’s that …
We’ve been trapped in this endless cycle where Republicans break the economy, then Democrats are elected, fix it, and then thrown out because “Republicans are better for the economy.”
This Trump economy has to be wrapped around every Republican’s neck, not just in the 2026 and 2028 elections but also in every year moving forward, forever. Maybe CEOs can learn that however much they may hate individual regulations, it’s a small price to pay for functioning markets and a healthy economy.
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