Jamie Dimon just threw down the gauntlet, issuing a series of bellicose comments—at least politically speaking—directed squarely at President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
‘I think I could beat Trump, because I’m as tough as he is, I’m smarter than he is’ —Jamie Dimon
The JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, -1.27% CEO said he could best Trump in a race for the White House because he’s got the physical and mental chops.
On top of that, Dimon suggested that he wasn’t born with a proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, implying that Trump didn’t earn his wealth the hard way but instead inherited it.
“And by the way this wealthy New Yorker actually earned his money,” Dimon said. “It wasn’t a gift from daddy,” he said. Dimon’s net worth is approximately $1.4 billion, according to Forbes, compared with $3.1 billion for Trump. Forbes indicates that Trump “got his start working for his father, Fred, who developed low-cost housing in Brooklyn and Queens.”
The comments come at a JPMorgan-sponsored event where the outspoken Dimon was answering questions from a moderator about whether he would might be interested in throwing his name in the mix in a 2020 fight for the presidency. They are likely to draw a swift response from Trump via Twitter.
In the past, Dimon has described himself as a patriot who wants to serve his country and the best way he feels that he can but thus far he has been reluctant about entering the political arena in earnest. “I would love to be president of the United States of America” he said, according to a Vanity Fair article. Dimon has been described in the past as America’s least-hated bankers and perhaps among the most prominent among his ilk in the national scene.
It’s impossible to say how Dimon might fare against Trump in a presidential tête-à-tête, but the CEO’s company has been the best performers among the nation’s largest banks.
Soon after his remarks on Wednesday, Dimon moderated them, emphasizing that he isn’t running for president. “I should not have said it,” he wrote. The JPMorgan chieftain said his statements are proof that he wouldn’t make a good politician. “I get frustrated because I want all sides to come together to help solve big problems,” he said via emailed remarks from a JPMorgan representative.
Shares of JPMorgan are up 6.3% so far in 2018, exceeding the performance of peers, including Citigroup Inc. C, +1.80% Wells Fargo & Co. WFC, -2.37% Morgan Stanley MS, -0.98% Goldman Sachs GS, -0.88% and Bank of America Corp. BAC, -1.43% which are mostly negative for the year (with the exception of B. of A.’s 3.7% year-to-date return). By comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.01% of which JPMorgan is a component, is up 5.4% in 2018, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.09% has advanced by 8.1% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.48% has climbed nearly 15% so far this year, according to FactSet data.
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