Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase CEO, Considered Run For President
Jamie Dimon, the longtime head of JP Morgan Chase, and one of the nation’s most powerful business executives, spent much of the past year weighing a run for president, but ultimately decided not to do so, CNBC reported on Thursday.
The 63-year-old Wall Street titan spent much of 2018 considering whether to run, before concluding that he probably couldn’t get the nomination of either major party. Therefore, he decided to “continue to serve his country from his current positions.” Dimon, in addition to his duties at JP Morgan, is also chairman of the Business Roundtable.
Dimon had talked a bit in the past about wanting to run for president, even openly stating that he could beat President Trump in an election. But Dimon, the report said, decided that the current climate of the Democratic Party wasn’t hospitable to a bank CEO.
After Dimon’s comments last year that he could beat Trump in an election, the president struck back on Twitter.
“The problem with banker Jamie Dimon running for President is that he doesn’t have the aptitude or ‘smarts’ & is a poor public speaker & nervous mess,” the president tweeted on September 13. “Otherwise he is wonderful. I’ve made a lot of bankers, and others, look much smarter than they are with my great economic policy.”
Dimon, a billionaire, has been CEO of JP Morgan Chase since 2005. Prior to that, he was CEO of Bank One, at the time that the bank was acquired by JP Morgan. Dimon weathered the 2008 financial crisis, with the aid of Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds, and JP Morgan Chase has remained the largest bank on Wall Street.
EXCLUSIVE: Jamie Dimon, the billionaire CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, spent much of last year mulling a 2020 presidential run, sources say. He ultimately decided that he couldn't win either party's nomination. @WilfredFrost #CNBC https://t.co/cm9XdSsIrx
— Hugh Son (@Hugh_Son) April 4, 2019
Dimon has mostly donated to Democrats, although he said in a 2012 Politico interview that he was “barely a Democrat,” and was critical of what he called the party’s “anti-business behavior.”
The executive recently released a shareholders letter, per CNBC, that dealt with several issues of concern to him, including wage stagnation, income inequality, and the decline of institutions. The letter was seen by some as a hint that Dimon was laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign launch. It was part of efforts the company has put forward for job training and other programs geared toward reducing inequality.
“No one can claim that the promise of equal opportunity is being offered to all Americans through our education systems, nor are those who have run afoul of our justice system getting the second chance that many of them deserve,” Dimon wrote in the letter.
