(Yahoo! Finance) - President-elect Donald Trump and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon made it clear Thursday they won’t be joining forces in government.
"I wish the president well," Dimon said during a Bloomberg interview. "I’ve not had a boss in 25 years, and I’m not ready to start," he added. It was his first public conversation since the US election.
But the president-elect got there first. He took to Truth Social roughly thirty minutes before Dimon’s talk to dispel rumors.
“I respect Jamie Dimon, of JPMorgan Chase, greatly, but he will not be invited to be a part of the Trump Administration. I thank Jamie for his outstanding service to our Country!” Trump’s Truth Social account said in a post at 2 p.m. ET.
So far, Trump has largely stocked his Cabinet with his closest loyalists and ruled out voices who have offered nearly any recent criticism. Trump previously preemptively ruled out — also in a social media post — appointing former rival Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Leading up to the US election, Dimon, who has been an outspoken voice on a range of issues, did not give a full-throated endorsement of either Vice President Kamala Harris or Trump.
He did offer them advice, Yahoo Finance has reported, via informal and formal advisers to both candidates. And the scrutiny of his views intensified as both campaigns eyed a potential Dimon endorsement as a final sought-after prize.
Trump made sure to praise Dimon in Thursday’s post and, in October, Trump’s account even posted a false claim of a Dimon endorsement.
The public attention on Dimon comes as the speculation around Trump’s economic team intensifies, with the president-elect moving to quickly name his team following last week’s election victory.
So far, Trump has focused mostly on non-economic areas with a raft of controversial picks, from Rep. Matt Gaetz as his nominee for attorney general to Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense.
The picks for top economic jobs are expected to come within days.
A variety of figures, from investor Scott Bessent to former US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, are seen as potentially in line for positions, including the coveted role of Treasury Secretary.
Dimon won’t be among them but, as the New York Times and Yahoo Finance had reported, Dimon joining a Trump White House was never really likely. One source said the CEO favored Harris in private. In the days leading to Election Day, Dimon’s wife Judy had also volunteered with the Harris campaign.
Though much is uncertain about what a Trump administration will mean for the economy, US bank stocks rallied after Trump's victory in a sign that financial institutions expect to have an easier time in Washington under a new Republican administration.
Dimon himself has called for fewer regulations, recently blasting "an onslaught" from overseers under the current Biden administration.
On Thursday, he said he does expect the Trump administration to pull back current regulation and make it easier for companies to do mergers.
However, given his concern over the current geopolitical environment, Dimon still thinks the chance that the US economy pulls off a "soft landing" is "less than other people think."
By David Hollerith and Ben Werschkul
