JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon is in Washington again this week, and once again he didn’t endorse a residential candidate.
The odds of that happening with 11 days left before Election Day are dwindling fast.
In a conversation Thursday at a conference hosted by the Institute of International Finance in Washington, Dimon discussed the importance of collaboration in politics. But he said nothing about either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.
One source close to Dimon said he hasn’t given a full-throated endorsement of either presidential candidate publicly or privately but has favored Harris in private conversations, as the New York Times reported earlier this week.
That doesn't mean he agrees with the vice president on everything, this source added.
Jamie Dimon during a visit to France earlier this year. (LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) ·LUDOVIC MARIN via Getty Images
"Yelling at each other doesn't work. Stupid policy doesn't work. Coming up with things that sound like virtue signaling but don't work, doesn’t work," Dimon said Thursday while discussing politics, echoing a Washington Post op-ed he wrote in August.
Dimon has at least one more public appearance before Election Day, and the scrutiny of his views has intensified as stewardship of the economy remains one of the top issues in a tight election.
The Harris and Trump campaigns both declined to comment this week on Dimon and a possible endorsement, but Trump senior adviser Brian Hughes previously told Yahoo Finance in a statement that both Dimon and former President Trump "share support of commonsense policies."
Earlier this month, Trump's social media account posted a false claim of a Dimon endorsement, which the banker's aides were quick to note was false.
Dimon's differences with Trump go back to his administration. Dimon condemned Trump after Jan. 6 but more recently raised eyebrows when he said, in a January CNBC interview, of Trump: "Take a step back, be honest. He was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration, [and] he grew the economy quite well."
The JPMorgan Chase headquarters building is seen in 2023 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) ·Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images
A possible future role for Dimon in D.C.
Further clouding the dynamic and the question of an endorsement is whether Dimon would be interested in a role in either future administration.
The banker’s eventual retirement as top boss of JPMorgan adds another wrinkle to the intense focus on his actions as the bank prepares possible successors once Dimon is ready to leave.
Earlier this year, he offered some indication that the timetable for his retirement may be nearing. It's "not five years anymore," Dimon said in May at his bank's annual investor day in New York City. In past years, when asked about the topic, his default response was to say he would stay in the job for another five years.
Dimon has acknowledged his desire to work in some kind of public service capacity, and this week's New York Times story said Dimon would consider a role, perhaps Treasury secretary, in Harris's administration.
Dimon has offered advice to both 2024 campaigns, Yahoo Finance has reported, via informal and formal advisers to both candidates.
The source close to Dimon told Yahoo Finance that though Dimon will listen to any candidate, Dimon does not intend to serve in either administration. Dimon’s desire to take such a position depends on whether he could do the job without interference, this source said.
That's also a refrain Dimon has made publicly. The subject came up two weeks ago when an analyst asked the bank boss on an earnings conference call: "If you were asked by the next administration to serve the country, would you be open to considering it?"
Dimon said in response that "the chance of that is almost nil, and I probably am not going to do it.”
On Thursday, he was asked if he could ever imagine doing anything besides running the country’s largest bank, he said, “Not really, I love what I do.”
"I love this perch, and I do think it's important we use our perches, all of us, to further the interests of mankind and for the interests of our countries."
But even with Dimon's perhaps coyness, the pressure to bring him to D.C. could be growing, especially if Harris wins.
Jamie Dimon testifies during a Senate Banking Committee hearing in 2023. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) ·Win McNamee via Getty Images
"I love Jamie, and I think he’d do an amazing job," billionaire entrepreneur and prominent Harris supporter Mark Cuban told Yahoo Finance earlier this week when asked whether it would be good for America for the Wall Street statesman to become Treasury Secretary.
And even if things don't work out in this cycle for the 68-year-old Dimon, the bipartisan interest in his services could also mean he might land in D.C. in a future administration.
"He’s created a bank worth $600 billion," William Cohan, an author and correspondent for Puck News, pointed out in a live interview with Yahoo Finance.
The role of US Treasury Secretary “would be a very good way for him to exit the bank. … He needs something like this to gracefully exit,” Cohan added.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance. David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto, and other areas in finance.
