Jamie Dimon seemed to close the door finally on a presidential run. Or maybe not.
The JPMorgan CEO, widely regarded as the king of banking because of his stellar record running the nation’s largest financial institution, appeared to leave the door open Wednesday morning, ever so slightly, that he might take a stab at the highest office in the land at some point, maybe soon.
Speaking at a high-profile tech conference in San Francisco sponsored by AI powerhouse DataBricks, Dimon, clad in jeans and a black sweater, was asked by company CEO Ali Ghodsi, “would you run for president?”
Dimon turned to the crowd of about 1,000 techies and asked: “How many of you would vote for me?”
Amid the applause, and the significant show of hands, he quipped with a smile: “I get all the rich white people to vote for me.”
He then gave his standard non-denial:
“I am a banker, I am 69, I always say I would love to be president but you would have to anoint me. I have never run for office. I think there’s a skill…I have never done that so I think the answer is no. I will do anything to help the country though.”
Dimon spent much of the conference talking about the power of AI, a need for a strong defense, the economic threat from China, but it was the “think” part of his answer on future political aspirations that had Wall Street buzzing that Dimon may look to run in three years when Donald Trump’s second term is over.
So I asked one of Dimon’s JPMorgan handlers for an explanation.
Dimon’s position hasn’t changed, he explained to me.
Dimon would love to be president, but he’s too centrist on too many issues, including some of the divisive cultural issues, that he couldn’t win the nomination of either party.
“He thinks he would do a great job, he just doesn’t think he could win,” the flack said.
Notice the word “think.”
Dimon has been notoriously fickle over the years both on the timing of his retirement, and what he would do after taking the toughest job in banking, like taking the toughest political job in the world as president. His wavering has earned him the moniker Wall Street’s “Hamlet.”
As On The Money has reported, Dimon is supposed to step down as CEO sometime in the next three years or so, but people inside JPM say he might stay longer, at least as chairman. He also keeps talking about being president like he really wants the job, as evidenced by his remarks at the DataBricks confab.
In 2018, he even said he would make a better president than Donald Trump, remarking that “I think I could beat Trump” in a race.
“I’m as tough as he is, I’m smarter than he is. I would be fine. He could punch me all he wants, it wouldn’t work with me. I’d fight right back.”
Dimon refined the comments later, saying they prove “I wouldn’t make a good politician.”
Over the years, Dimon has been both a supporter and a critic of Trumpian policies (recently he spoke about the need for border enforcement, but he doesn’t like the president’s approach to tariffs). That hasn’t stopped our current president from occasionally floating Dimon as a possible Treasury Secretary because of his obvious star power on Wall Street and market prowess.
Meanwhile, the Dimon-for-President movement has been percolating following a co-byline article in Fortune on June 3 where Yale University’s high-profile management guru Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Stephen Henriques, a Senior Fellow at Chief Executive Leadership Institute, wrote that Dimon’s business success and moderate politics would make him perfect for the job.
“Dimon has consistently espoused a political philosophy of social consciousness with fiscal prudence.” they wrote.
“The ever-pragmatic executive will promote policies embracing smaller, more efficient government, sensible regulations, and speedy permitting processes, then pivot to cutting special tax breaks (including carried interest), doubling the earned income tax credit, investing in public education, defending voting rights, and championing the cultural and economic importance of cities.”
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