Citadel CEO Ken Griffin said that CEOs are scared of talking about politics — and sick of yo-yoing between politicians to stay successful.
Griffin said that the US government’s new style of direct engagement with corporate America is causing some business leaders to question whether their fortunes will change from one administration to the next, depending on their level of public support.
“When the US government starts to engage in corporate America in a way that tastes of favoritism, I know for most CEOs that I’m friends with, they find it incredibly distasteful,” Griffin said at the Wall Street Journal’s Invest Live event on Tuesday.
Leaders, he said, would rather focus on creating value for customers and shareholders than catering to an administration.
“Most CEOs just don’t want to find themselves in the business of having to, in some sense, suck up to one administration after another to succeed in running their business,” he said.
Griffin criticized current and past administrations for their involvement in corporate America, citing green energy investments under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
“We don’t need the US government to pretend to be venture capitalists,” he said.
In August, the Trump administration took a nearly 10% stake in Intel, a few weeks after the president had called on Intel’s CEO to resign, but changed his tune after a White House meeting.
When asked why fewer CEOs are speaking out about hot-button political issues, Griffin said they’re still reeling from prior years, when companies that involved themselves in what he called the “woke movement” were either “embraced or ostracized” as a result.
“That’s created a level of fear and apprehension among the corporate CEO class to insert themselves in any publicly facing issues these days,” Griffin said.
Social media has, he added, taken apprehension to a fever pitch, since sentiment about a company or its product can catch like wildfire.
“The power of social media to persuade millions or tens of millions of consumers to make a product choice is really terrifying to corporate executives,” Griffin said. Recent deadly shootings by ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minnesota have pushed some CEOs, from big names in tech to small business owners, to comment publicly on politics again.
Griffin, one of the GOP’s biggest donors, was also asked about whether he has plans to run for public office, Griffin said that he hasn’t ruled it out.
“I’d like to believe at a future point in my life I will be involved in public service,” adding that it was unlikely in the next few years.
In terms of others’ public service, Griffin praised Trump’s pick for Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, calling the nomination a “powerful assertion that the Fed will maintain needed independence in policy decision-making.”
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