Trump’s billionaire backers begin to balk at his tariffs

Back in January, when Donald Trump was inaugurated as president for the second time, he made a point to feature prominent billionaires. Their combined net worth totaled more than $1 trillion.

Today, amid a stock market-busting tariff gambit that has cost many of them substantial wealth and thrown the economic forecast into chaos, some of his most prominent billionaire backers and others who entertained his tariffs are breaking with him in a major way.

Some of them are even taking shots at key pro-tariff Trump advisers. Many other uber-wealthy and vocal Trump-backers are conspicuously quiet. Most prominent among them has been Elon Musk, a top White House adviser who had said little about the tariffs before they were announced.

But that changed this weekend. By early Saturday morning, Musk was taking clear and unambiguous shots at one of the long-standing architects of Trump’s tariff policies, fellow White House adviser Peter Navarro. Responding to a clip of Navarro promoting the tariffs, Musk derided Navarro’s Harvard education and said in a since-deleted tweet, “He ain’t built s—-.”

(Navarro responded Sunday by pointing to how much Musk relies on imports for his cars: “Look, Elon, when he’s in his DOGE line, is great … He’s simply protecting his own interests, as any businessperson would do.”)

Musk also promoted a quote from economist Thomas Sowell, which, by Musk’s implication, suggested the tariffs were a “disaster” in the making. And by early Monday, he shared a video of conservative and anti-tariff economist Milton Friedman espousing the virtues of the free market.

Similarly, pro-Trump billionaire influencer Bill Ackman – one of his most active defenders on social media – this weekend made a sharp and more explicit turn away from Trump’s tariffs.

After last week suggesting they were a ploy to look unpredictable and spur negotiations, Ackman unleashed a torrent of criticisms. He likened the situation to an “economic nuclear war” and said, “This is not what we voted for.” He said the formula the White House used – which was not based on tariffs other countries were charging but rather trade imbalances – was faulty and resulted in extraordinarily high taxes on imports. He repeatedly expressed hope that Trump would at least pause the tariffs.

“The President’s advisers need to acknowledge their error before April 9th and make a course correction before the President makes a big mistake based on bad math,” Ackman said.

Ackman, like Musk, also took aim at a top pro-tariffs Trump adviser: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. He said Lutnick “profits when our economy implodes” because of his investments and called it an “irreconcilable conflict of interest.” He later backed off that allegation but didn’t delete his posts.

(It’s worth noting that, despite the efforts to blame Trump’s advisers for this, Trump himself has for decades promoted the idea of tariffs. And the Washington Post reported last week that it was actually Trump who personally selected the formula used.)

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon did not back Trump in 2024 but has been solicitous of him. In December, he predicted the second Trump administration would be “the most pro-growth, pro-business, pro-American administration” of his lifetime. By January, he urged people skeptical of Trump’s tariffs to “Get over it.”

“If it’s a little inflationary but it’s good for national security, so be it,” Dimon added.

Dimon in an annual letter to shareholders Monday struck a very different tone.

He warned that the tariffs could lead to a recession and weaken the United States by fragmenting military and economic alliances. He said “ ‘economic’ warfare has caused military warfare in the past.”

“The quicker this issue is resolved the better because some of the negative effects increase cumulatively over time and would be hard to reverse,” he added.

While Musk, Ackman and Dimon have made the big news, as telling is the lack of backup Trump is getting from some of his most outspoken wealthy allies.

David Sacks, who like Ackman has been one of Trump’s most prolific social media promoters and serves as a White House adviser on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, hasn’t posted to X in his own words since April 1 – before Trump’s tariffs announcement.

Vivek Ramaswamy, who was initially supposed to spearhead the U.S. DOGE Service with Musk but instead ran for governor of Ohio, has said little about the tariffs in recent days. (Ramaswamy before the tariffs announcement indicated he would support actual reciprocal tariffs – taxing imports the same amount that other countries tax ours – but didn’t like having higher tariffs than other countries have on us, which is what Trump is doing now.)

And these aren’t the only usual Trump allies who are balking. We’re seeing increasing resistance from congressional Republicans, with some even talking about taking back Congress’s constitutional power over tariffs.

That probably won’t ever happen. But it’s evident the panic is setting in. And it’s coming from plenty of people who placed a heavy bet on Trump.