They thought Trump was just going to cut some red tape and some taxes
Don’t tell me they weren’t aware that he’s an aged, narcissistic imbecile. They knew exactly what he was. They just thought he’d do them some favors and spend the rest of his time tweeting, golfing and torturing the libs. Surprise. Put a lunatic in change and there’s an excellent chance things are going to get crazy:
“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.
“What decision do you make? Do you want to go left or right?” El-Khoury told Semafor in an interview this week. “Are we going to grow the business? Well, I don’t know. Are there tariffs or not?” (Since that interview, Trump threatened to double his own proposed 10% tariffs on China and put a 25% levy on European goods.)
CEO optimism is fading as Trump pushes ahead with trade restrictions, while business-friendly deregulation has yet to materialize. US consumer confidence in January recorded its biggest one-month decline since November 2023. The US stock market, long Trump’s preferred proxy for economic might, is lower than it was before his inauguration, trailing major indexes in Europe, China, Mexico, and Canada — all targets of the president’s planned tariffs.
Still, they aren’t exactly shouting it from the rooftops. Maybe when the tariffs hit and unemployment and inflation jump they’ll get a little bit more openly agitated? It won’t be long before we can see. They certainly are proving one thing — they don’t give a damn about the country.