Trump’s 'crazy' proposals make Fortune 100 CEOs 'reluctant Biden voters': Yale economist

25 June 2024

June has seen a great deal of reporting on all the millionaires and billionaires who are supporting presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

Billionaire Thomas Mellon, for example, donated $50 million to a pro-Trump super PAC.

But Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld — president of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute — has been emphasizing that support for Trump is hardly universal among corporate CEOs. In a guest essay/op-ed published by The New York Times on June 23, Sonnenfeld pointed out "not a single Fortune 100 chief executive has donated to the candidate so far this year.

Sonnenfeld also offered some reasons for this lack of support among Fortune 100 CEOs during a June 24 appearance on CNBC.

"We've been looking at this now for the last four months," Sonnenfeld explained. "We've been pointing out that there are no Fortune 500 CEOs who are supporting former President Trump. And that is an historic break, going back to William Howard Taft and through Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan and the Bushes and everything."

Sonnenfeld went on to say that "the Trump economic package frightens" these CEOs.

"It's extremely inflationary," Sonnenfeld warned. "The tariff's 10 percent across the board on all imports; that's just crazy. It'll lead to a 3 percent increase for sure in inflation, and then plunging to the GDP. And that's before retaliatory gestures."

Sonnenfeld continued, "The increase in the deficit; he wants to cut $5 trillion taxes with no commensurate cut and expenditures. So, these are problems."

The Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute president said that these Fortune 100 CEOs will be "reluctant Biden voters" because "they don't want the fabric of society pulled apart."

Trump's lack of support among Fortune 100 CEOs is the focus of an article by Axios' Felix Salmon, published on June 25.

That group, Salmon notes, "historically leans Republican" but — according to data from Sonnenfeld — hasn't been donating to Trump "this election cycle."

"It's very easy to overstate how much America's business establishment supports Donald Trump," Salmon explains. "Just because Corporate America has serious issues with Joe Biden doesn't mean they are in Trump's camp."

The reporter notes that Trump received no donations from Fortune 100 CEOs during the 2016 election but "managed to pick up the support of two Fortune 100 CEOs" in 2020. Salmon also points out that although many Fortune 100 execs are conservative Republicans, they're "not MAGA."

"Big-name investors seem to be more likely to support Trump than big-name CEOs," Salmon observes. "Steve Schwarzman of Blackstone is probably Trump's most prominent investment world supporter. Susquehanna's Jeff Yass — who holds a massive stake in TikTok's parent company — was described recently by Bloomberg as 'a former Never Trumper who's recently softened to become an OK-Fine-Might-As-Well-Be Trumper.'"

Watch the full CNBC video below or at this link.

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