Ken Griffin, chief executive officer and founder of Citadel Advisors LLC, spoke during the New York Economic Club event in New York, USA, Thursday, November 21, 2024.
Yuki Iwamura Bloomberg Getty Images
Citadel CEO Ken Griffin issued a warning against the steep tariffs President-elect Donald Trump vowed to implement, saying crony capitalism could be the result.
“I’m very concerned that rate hikes are taking us down a slope toward crony capitalism,” the billionaire investor said Friday at the Economic Club of New York.
The founder of Citadel said that the domestic company could benefit in the short term as its competitors were removed. But long-term, it’s more dangerous for American companies and the economy because companies lose competitiveness and productivity, he said.
Crony capitalism is an economic system marked by close and mutually beneficial relationships between business leaders and government officials.
“The same companies that enjoyed a sugar rush because their competitors were removed from the battlefield soon became complacent, soon assumed a new economic advantage, and frankly, they became less competitive on the world stage and less competitive to meet the needs .the American consumer,” Griffin said on the show.
Trump made universal tariffs a core tenet of his economic campaign, floating a 20% levy on all imports from all countries with a 60% tariff specifically on Chinese goods.
Protectionist trade policies could make goods more expensive to produce and raise consumer prices, even as the world recovers from pandemic-era inflation.
“Now you will find the halls of Washington literally filled with special interest groups and lobbyists as people seek higher and higher tariffs to prevent foreign competition, and to protect inefficient American businesses that fail to meet the needs of American consumers, ” said Griffin.
At the same event, Griffin also said that he is not focused on taking Citadel Securities public in the near future. Citadel is a market maker founded by Griffin in 2002.
“We are focusing on building a business, on investing in our future. And we believe that there are personal benefits during this period, very fast growth,” he said.
