JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon suggested in an interview early Wednesday that he would be open to running for office, saying: “I love my country, and maybe one day I’ll serve my country in one capacity or another.” Hours later, billionaire hedge funder and activist investor Bill Ackman threw his support behind Dimon’s imaginary candidacy in a long and effusive tweet, writing that the bank chief was the perfect business-savvy outsider candidate for the 2024 election.
“We need an exemplary business, financial, and global leader to manage through what is likely to be a critically important decade for our country in determining our destiny,” Ackman wrote in the tweet. “Jamie Dimon is that leader.” He went on to describe Dimon as a pro-free-enterprise centrist who could unite the left and right, and a man of “exemplary and unimpeachable character.”
JPMorgan Chase declined Fortune’s request for comment.
Although Dimon teased the idea of a political run, the financier has served as the head of JPMorgan since 2005, and has no plans to leave the bank in the near future, adding in the same interview that he loves his work there.
But in his enthusiastic support of Dimon, Ackman proposes he run on the Democratic ticket, criticizing Biden’s tenure as president and suggesting that Dimon’s outsider status could position him advantageously in the party, even going so far as to call him “a wonderful father, friend, husband, and son. In sum, he is the kind of person our country deserves as our next leader.”
He added that Dimon’s business acumen is uniquely necessary in the face of the country’s debt crisis and impending recession.
“He has superbly managed [JPMorgan] through every crisis, and has built the world’s best, large, global financial institution working for clients from startups and mom and pops, to global institutions and countries,” Ackman wrote.
JPMorgan has seen huge success under Dimon’s leadership. Dimon has maneuvered the country’s largest bank through the global financial crisis and the recent series of bank collapses while maintaining growth.
Ackman suggests that the CEO has in fact been so successful that he has hit a ceiling in his current position as the “world’s best banker,” and says he would most benefit the economy as a public servant.
“There is only one better job for Jamie than CEO of JPM and that’s POTUS,” Ackman wrote. He added that Dimon becoming president would bolster JPMorgan stock.
Dimon has hinted at running for office before, stating publicly at a 2018 JPMorgan event: “I think I could beat Trump, because I’m as tough as he is, I’m smarter than he is. I would be fine. He could punch me all he wants, it wouldn’t work with me. I’d fight right back.” He retracted the comments an hour after the event, saying that he was not running for president. CNBC reported in 2019 that Dimon had weighed running in the 2020 election during 2018, but decided against it because he doubted his chances with the more liberal side of the Democratic party.
Ackman’s Wednesday tweet is not his first endorsement of a potential Dimon candidacy. In March, he discussed the 2024 election on 20VC, a venture capital podcast, telling host Harry Stebbings that Dimon would be his ideal candidate for the upcoming presidential race.
“A globally recognized, respected, talented business builder that understands the economy, that understands geopolitics, that has relationships with business leaders globally and also has a track record of caring for broad ranges of citizens—that kind of person would make for an excellent candidate,” Ackman told Stebbings. He further predicted that Dimon could easily raise billions of campaign dollars from the left and right alike.
But if Dimon plans to run for office, he needs to begin building support in the broad electorate now, Ackman wrote in his Wednesday tweet, ultimately urging his followers to express support for a Dimon campaign and calling it a “civic duty” to convince the CEO to run.
“Jamie just needs a push from people he respects and from the broader electorate,” Ackman wrote. “If you agree that he should be our next POTUS, give him a call, send him an email or go see him, and like and retweet this tweet.”
