This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder of Citadel, wants to get America’s “fiscal house in order” but doesn’t believe Elon Musk can do it alone.
Speaking at Wednesday’s DealBook conference in New York, Griffin said it was unlikely that Musk, who has become a close advisor of President-elect Donald Trump and is set to co-lead the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, would be able to cut the trillions he’s called for without changes to entitlements.
“Making cuts in any form or fashion will be very politically unpopular,” said Griffin, who was one of the biggest donors to the Republican Party this election but declined to support Trump directly — though he said he voted for the real-estate mogul.
Griffin — who paused for a couple of seconds when asked for his opinion about Musk’s new task running DOGE, prompting scattered laughs from a crowd that included his fellow hedge-fund billionaire Dan Loeb and the founder of Polymarket, Shayne Coplan — said the bond market could eventually become unsteady if there wasn’t a cleanup of the country’s spending.
“To make Elon wear the entire burden of that responsibility is preposterous,” he said.
Griffin, who lauded Musk’s entrepreneurial abilities, added that he hoped the Federal Reserve would remain independent so it could make necessary decisions too unpopular for politicians.
The wide-ranging interview between Griffin and the New York Times editor and CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin also showed that the billionaire hedge-fund manager doesn’t think Trump’s most explosive economic policies, such as his aggressive tariff proposals, will go into effect.
Last week, Trump posted about implementing tariffs on countries such as Brazil and Russia that were considering creating a new currency to reduce the power of the US dollar. “It’s not going to happen,” Griffin said bluntly about Trump’s recent warning.
This is how negotiating is done in real estate, Griffin said, adding that he believed items such as tariffs were a “second-order” issue.
“America is open for business,” Griffin said repeatedly, and he pushed that throughout the interview. Gone is the “paralyzing regulation” of Joe Biden’s administration, he said, and executives are “smiling from ear-to-ear.”
“For corporate America, it’s a better world today than it was before the election,” he said.
Griffin’s $65 billion firm had a strong November, returning 1.8% in its flagship Wellington fund. When asked whether there was still room in the investment industry for smaller funds and individual investors, Griffin said there was always going to be a dominant incumbent in any industry.
“When I started out, I had to go compete with Salomon Brothers and Goldman Sachs,” he said.
Now, new launches compete with his firm and peers such as Millennium and Point72.
“Your entrepreneurs find a way to make it happen,” he said.
Read the full article here
