CNBC NEWS
As Donald Trump surges toward the Republican nomination, many Wall Street executives have made a calculated decision not to speak out against him, and in some cases they will consider supporting the Republican former president over Democratic President Joe Biden, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the matter.
“A lot of people on Wall Street have been living in this pipe dream of Trump not getting the nomination. People were in the first stage of [grief], denial. Now they’re trying to get their heads around the fact that Trump could be the nominee,” said an executive at a private equity firm. Like others in this story, the executive was granted anonymity in order to relay details of private conversations.
This view reflects one shared by large portions of Wall Street, who are scrambling to come to grips with the idea that Trump is the likely GOP nominee for president and he could beat Biden in November. A Real Clear Politics polling average Sunday had Trump leading Biden nationwide by about 2 points in a general election.
“It’s painful for me to admit this, but Wall Street is basically nonchalant to this election,” longtime Wall Street executive and former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci said in a recent interview with The Hill.
“I think they view Donald Trump by and large as benign to somewhat beneficial to the economy and business,” he added.
Other financial executives have little appetite for angering the former president, and want to hedge their bets in the race for the White House, where polls show a close contest between Trump and Biden.
“I think unless there is some catastrophic crisis like the [Jan. 6, 2021] insurrection, they think of themselves as stewards of other people’s money and they don’t want to take a position that divides their workforce, their investors and their customers. They are mindful of their different constituencies,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management.
“They are not out there to be political ward heelers. They are not out there doing door-to-door campaign solicitations. They are there to run their companies,” he added. More than practically any other…
