Top banking executive reverses course on climate change
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Friday criticized government initiatives that focus on climate change, an apparent reversal from his stance during the Biden administration.
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“The Biden administration was giving all this money to EVs and cars and wasting a lot of money on green stuff which isn't going to work, and all that,” Dimon told attendees at the Reagan National Economic Forum. “Do you think people in rural cities, do you think people in inner cities thought they were getting anything? Do you think that those people think that the American government is fair and competent and that this was in their best interest? Their schools don't work and they're not getting the skills they need.”
Later in his talk, Dimon lamented that “the whole world” is “going to waste a lot of money in the green economy.”
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Dimon’s remarks are in stark contrast to his previous position on climate change. In a 2023 letter to shareholders, Dimon insisted that “[m]assive global investment in clean energy technologies must be done and must continue to grow year-over-year.” To achieve this, he said, the government may need to seize property from private citizens, what is legally referred to as “eminent domain.”
“At the same time, permitting reforms are desperately needed to allow investment to be done in any kind of timely way,” wrote Dimon. “We may even need to evoke eminent domain — we simply are not getting the adequate investments fast enough for grid, solar, wind and pipeline initiatives.”
Dimon also railed against Americans who oppose carbon taxes, a measure applauded by the World Economic Forum that would tax people based on their carbon emissions.
“I also want to express exasperation with some of my fellow citizens who don’t pay the taxes they owe on the order of $600 billion a year, who won’t consider sensible policy measures like a carbon tax to stem climate change and who sometimes seem to only like democracy when the voters agree with them,” Dimon wrote.
