American business leaders are turning on Trump -- fast

[Coventina]

"A difficult time to invest.”

“Everybody’s paralyzed.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be particularly positive.”

“The chaos that is reigning right now is causing everyone to sit on their hands.”

That’s Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, ON Semiconductor CEO Hassane El-Khoury, Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson, and Nasdaq Private Market CEO Tom Callahan on the world of Donald Trump right now. Their comments over the past week capture a growing disquiet among business leaders, a month into a presidency that many of them had cheered.

“What decision do you make? Do you want to go left or right?” El-Khoury told Semafor in an interview this week. “Are we going to grow the business? Well, I don’t know. Are there tariffs or not?” (Since that interview, Trump threatened to double his own proposed 10% tariffs on China and put a 25% levy on European goods.)

CEO optimism is fading as Trump pushes ahead with trade restrictions, while business-friendly deregulation has yet to materialize. US consumer confidence in January recorded its biggest one-month decline since November 2023. The US stock market, long Trump’s preferred proxy for economic might, is lower than it was before his inauguration, trailing major indexes in Europe, China, Mexico, and Canada — all targets of the president’s planned tariffs.

Microsoft — whose CEO, Satya Nadella, joined the post-election pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago — is calling on the White House to ease export limits on AI chips to allied or neutral countries. Chevron may lose a lucrative drilling concession in Venezuela over Trump’s immigration spat with that country’s strong-arm leader.

https://www.semafor.com/article/02/27/2025/american-business-leaders-are-turning-on-trump-fast

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Looks like business leaders are getting their faces eaten as well....

Leopards don't care!! All faces are yummers!!!

Nom, nom, nom.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

1. Tiny investors like me are hurt as well.

[Coventina]

3. I'm right there with you. Millions of us have been forced into the stock market

by the 401K deception.

My "retirement" is in the tank.

But, at least I wasn't dumb enough to vote for the Leopards to eat my face!

[Dynamic Unicorn]

42. I have not heard of the 401k deception before.

Can you please elaborate?

Are there better options available that we should be looking at to save for retirement?

Thank you.

[Coventina]

45. Pensions. Pensions were taken away because the stupid lie

was given that making workers invest in the stock market was better.

[Dynamic Unicorn]

46. I don't know much about pensions.

Wouldn’t the pension's funds just be invested in the stock market? How does the money that workers invest in a pension gain value?

Thanks again.

[Coventina]

48. Pensions operate in different ways. They have experts that handle them to

ensure enough money is being saved by the company in a variety of financial tools.

401Ks force employees to put most of their future in a much more perilous position.

There are relatively few tools to guide them.

Also, every 401K I've ever heard about / encountered has forced at least half of the investment to be in the company they are working for.

How would you like to be an employee of say, Boeing right now? How does your future retirement look? Especially if you are near retirement age?

It's pure garbage.

[Dynamic Unicorn]

49. Thank you for the detailed response.

I understand your position now. My experience with 401ks has been different, so I was not understanding how a pension could outperform a 401k for individual retirement savings.

The 401k plans that I have seen and been a part of do not dictate anything about where your money is invested. You have a list of funds, typically around 50, that vary from money market to full SP500 ETFs. This allows the participant to decide how risky they want to invest, from 0 risk to fully tied to market performance. Typical guidance is that as you near retirement you move from stock market funds to more bond driven funds to limit downside risk.

The other positive I have seen is that companies match the participant’s contribution, so you are effectively investing more for less. If you invest 8% of your pay, they may match 5% as an example.

Unfortunately, I have not been at a job where a pension was offered, so my experiences have not let me explore them before. Thank you again for taking the time to explain.

[spooky3]

52. Defined benefit pensions require the employer to increase their

Contributions if the investment returns fall short and the plan is then underfunded. The risk is on the employer. This is one reason why corporations terminated pension plans in favor of 401ks, where the employee bears the risk.

With few exceptions (such as employee stock ownership plans, which are a small minority of defined contribution plans), employers can allow up to 20% investment in employee stock.

https://www.ey.com/en_us/insights/tax/company-stock-in-401k-plans-the-good-the-bad-and-the-risky#:~:text=Some%20plans%20have%20imposed%20limits,%2C%20the%20limit%20is%2020%25.

[Maraya1969]

9. I'm scared to check my retirement fund. It was down a little the other day

and a little is OK but damn I don't want a continuation of "a little"

[groundloop]

22. You probably don't want to look at it today..... and I'm in the same boat.

I was forced into the stock markets by the 401K ploy, now I'm screwed if the markets take a big hit.

[Lovie777]

2. This stupid shit about DEI and woke is ridiculous................

the downfall of this idiotic racist republican party, no wonder other countries think we are just plain evil.

[underpants]

6. DEIA - Accessibility

Yes he’s going after the disabled too.

DEIA is mentioned once in his EO. His press minions TV&radio were mentioning it too unless they stopped recently.

[sop]

4. They're waiting for their huge tax cuts before they actually do anything.

[mwmisses4289]

5. You were told.

But you bastards are so greedy, you refused to listen. So enjoy the world you bought, even though it's not the one you thought you were buying. Just too effing bad you're taking the rest of us with you.

[returnee]

8. Right!

They didn’t know it was going to be a shitshow? Shouldn’t be CEO’s then, or maybe should have tried to stop him.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Big investors likely to lose more money with Trump policies than

what they would have saved on tax cuts.

[ProfessorGAC]

39. That's Likely The Case

70% after taxes on a bigger return will be greater than 75% of a lesser value.

[travelingthrulife]

10. Are all CEOs as ignorant as the ones in the US? Sheesh!

[progressoid]

11. "Chevron may lose a lucrative drilling concession in Venezuela"

"Venizooela? Why ain't Chevron drilling 'Murican Ole?"

.webp

[ananda]

12. Yes, leopards do not discriminate.

Any face will do.

[ultralite001]

13. Not fast enough...

IMHO...

[BaronChocula]

14. Deja vu

American business leaders are sounding like a black Democrat who brought the economy back from disaster and wanted the rich to pay their fair share was POTUS.

[SWBTATTReg]

15. Well Jesus in a basket. With tRUMP and all of his buddies frothing at the bit, doing everything negative how are

businesses and people supposed to act? Thank God that the republicans don't actually run any businesses otherwise everything in this Country will shut down.

Get your ducks in a row, and get your act together. Not everything in this world is involved around who goes to the bathroom or who is supposedly scamming social security or the like. If anything, I'd look at payments being made from the Feds to billion-dollar businesses in this Country, why in the heck are they getting anything? Corporate welfare is a big scam.

[Cha]

16. Ya Think?! Who among us did Not see this

Coming?!

Only ones Mump is making happy are the Fucking Treasonous Billionaires & Putin.

Mahalo, Coventina!

[cilla4progress]

51. True.

We moved our investments into money markets in December.

[MagickMuffin]

17. Hey CEO Cheerleaders, Whatsyagonna do about it?

Yeah, not much you can do, suckitup buttercups. You screwed everyone over.

[angrychair]

18. This is posturing

He will just bully a couple of them. Call out his horde to harass them or worse and they all will cave he do as they are told.
I have no faith in anything or anyone now.

[BoRaGard]

19. "Ha ha. Suckers and Losers. Ha ha." - G.O.P. Felon-Rapist 47 and presidont muck

[LoisB]

20. Did they not remember the chaos from ITs first term?

[mwmisses4289]

32. Apparently not.

[liberalla]

21. "Leopards don't care!! All faces are yummers!!! Nom, nom, nom."

Nom, nom, nom!!!!!

Love it!

[Carlitos Brigante]

23. Griffin is a scumbag sociopath, who pretty much owned Emanuel while he was mayor of Chicago. nt

[ancianita]

25. Chicago hates him, especially for this...

What was once just the south side lakefront's Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) is now



because he made a $125 million donation in 2019.

[Keepthesoulalive]

24. The government drives the economy

Hospitals, schools , defense contractors, social security.The government provides jobs for thousands of people. Defunding all of these things will lead to a disaster. A lot of rich people lost their fortunes during the Great Depression.

[EarthFirst]

26. STFU; your tax breaks are coming...

…JFC; cake AND eat it too?!

[live love laugh]

27. Money talk$

[ms liberty]

28. The leopards are feasting. Many faces are being served.

[pfitz59]

29. Forcing 'retirement' plans to be tied to the stock market

has been one of the worst cons in American history. Same with tying healthcare to employment. The GOP has fucked the American people for generations. All for a pocket full of gold.

[Dynamic Unicorn]

43. There was another post earlier in this thread that said something similar.

What other investment mechanism is available that allows for growth of savings that outpaces inflation?

I agree with you completely on the point of healthcare being tied to employment. I don't understand how that came to be, but it has been terrible for the healthcare system in this country, and makes no sense.

[paleotn]

30. Business runs on stability and predictability.

Not the whims of a fucking moron. Some went to kiss the ring because they felt they had to. Others refused because it was going to be a shit show no matter what they did. The later were the smarter group.

[live love laugh]

31. Trump does not care.

[AntiFascist]

33. Tax breaks don't matter so much, when you aren't making profits n/t

[ThoughtCriminal]

34. The one's that are heavily invested in human suffering

are going to do well. If your business thrives on disaster and fear, these will be boom years

[Initech]

35. The presidency affects everybody. And it's scary how much Trump thinks he's just president of Fox News viewers.

And no, Fox News, and the Heritage Foundation, and the Federalist Society - I don't want to live in a revolving door dictatorship like North Korea or Turkmenistan, OK? I want to live in the United States! That country that used to exist until you assholes got greedy and drunk with power in the 2024 election? Yeah fuck all y'all.

[NNadir]

36. To go full Godwin...

Last edited Fri Feb 28, 2025, 10:19 AM - Edit history (1)

...in 1933, business leaders were enthusiastic about the "strong leadership" of Adolf Hitler.

They may have enjoyed their cheap slave labor for some time, just as his maggotcy King Eloon enjoys his cobalt slaves in the Congo region. However this may have been at the cost of having their factories hit with high explosives, the cities around those factories incinerated, and the small matter of being tried for war crimes.

[Gum Logger]

37. What goes around comes around.

The Repugs have cultivated the Crackerheads for decades. Then Grump led them away like the pied piper. I wonder if any Republicans saw that coming.

[GoCubsGo]

38. I figured it would be a matter of time.

Wasn't expecting it to be this quickly, but it's still not fast enough. Everything Trump touches dies.

[Johnny2X2X]

40. It's a fickle economy

The economy is still strong,Biden built the strongest economy in my lifetime, but it's still fickle as hell.

And people will talk all kinds of mumbo jumbo, but the health of the economy boils down to 1 thing, regular people continuing to spend. All the tax cuts for billionaires in the world don't do squat to help the economy, but Joe and Jane Bluecollar feeling secure enough to keep spending is everything.

People are terrified, they aren't going to spend. I get a bonus every Spring, every Spring I do a major project on the house, pay cash for a trip, or make a major purchase. This Spring, I am beefing up my emergency fund, that's all I am doing, instead of 6 months of bills in my emergency fund, I want a year.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

41. They should have smelt his bullshit in the first place.

[Wingus Dingus]

44. Not fucking fast enough.

[peggysue2]

47. What?? The Wizards of Wall St, The CEOs who are paid 300-400% more than their workers . . .

Didn't see this coming? I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked.

Bullshit! They thought the sky was going to open and rain $$$ on Day One, that collaborating with He Who Would Be King would enrich them beyond their wildest imaginings. I think they still are hoping, absolutely expecting Agent Orange will turn on the spigots and deliver that big fat tax gift they've been drooling over, then deregulate the country so the thieving can go on forever.

But why not practice some CYA for the little people. Oh yeah, we're nervous, too.

Whaa-Whaa.

Cockroaches!

[ck4829]

50. Their turning needs to be more substantial though