It’s a bad time to be a finance billionaire. Well, in Washington, D.C., anyway.
Republicans on Wall Street, who had been largely coalescing around former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to return to office, suffered outright repudiation this week with his pick of Senator JD Vance of Ohio as a running mate. Mr. Vance, a harsh critic of corporate interests and a former venture capitalist, solidified a feeling in the world of high finance that the balance of power in the party had suddenly shifted westward to Silicon Valley.
In choosing Mr. Vance, Mr. Trump brushed off personal entreaties from some of the Republican Party’s biggest donors. Those financiers preferred Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota or Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, all reliable supporters of traditional rightward causes like corporate tax cuts, freewheeling trade policies and internationalism writ large.
Mr. Vance, by comparison, has built a political brand as an antagonist of the financial elite by criticizing business tax breaks, talking up the costs of global trade, embracing cryptocurrency, and opposing diversity initiatives that are popular across corporate America.
While accepting his nomination on Wednesday at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, he said the party was done “catering to Wall Street.”
That line and several others in Mr. Vance’s speech cast Wall Street’s titans as villains. It was a clear sign to many financiers at the convention and those watching at home that the party is no longer a clear ally, according to interviews with nearly two dozen investors, ex-government officials and advisers to donors of both parties.
“Populism is on the rise in the Republican Party,” said Eric Cantor, a former Republican House majority leader who is vice chairman at the investment bank Moelis & Company. It means “individuals and the high paid executives on Wall Street” were not playing a central role in the election, he said in an interview.
It’s a new and uncomfortable position for the finance set, which for decades enjoyed access and political sway in administrations of both parties. Either they slink back to a candidate they have savaged publicly and privately, or risk being shut out no matter who wins the White House in November.
“The influence of classic bankers just isn’t here,” said Rob Collins, the founder of Coign, an upstart credit-card company that markets its products to conservatives, in an interview from the convention.
The choice of Mr. Vance was a pointed rebuke of top Republican donors, including the hedge-fund titan Kenneth Griffin, who opposed the senator’s nomination right up until the hours before Mr. Trump’s announcement, according to two people briefed his efforts. The billionaire investor Paul Singer, in a recent dinner with Mr. Trump, suggested several vice-presidential candidates, none of them Mr. Vance, said one person familiar with the discussion.
“Nobody dangled or held back or conditioned any contribution or endorsement based on the choice of a vice president,” said Susie Wiles, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.
Propelled by enthusiasm from Silicon Valley and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, however, Mr. Trump chose Mr. Vance anyway.
“President Trump had many good choices for vice president, and I appreciate the thoughtful deliberations of the president and his team,” Mr. Griffin said in a statement.
Wall Street financiers have been heavy donors to both parties, and often take high-level roles in the government when they leave banking. For part of Mr. Trump’s term, Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs president and chief operating officer, served as a top economic adviser. The former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was also an alumnus of the bank — the latest in a procession of century-long overlap between public and private industry that earned the term “Government Sachs.”
They brought with them a view that global competition wasn’t just good for big business but for consumers at all income levels, as it helped drive down the cost of goods and ultimately increased the standard of living for all.
But, said Jay Clayton, a lawyer who represented some of the world’s biggest financial institutions and was head of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Trump administration, it is time to “question whether the traditional economic view of the last decades” was the right one for the party.
Mr. Trump can still boast of a cadre of Wall Street supporters: Billionaire investor John Paulson hosted an event for Mr. Trump in April that raised more than $50 million and included some financiers, including Nelson Peltz of the hedge fund Trian Partners. Steve Schwarzman, the billionaire chief executive of the Blackstone Group, has separately said he’s backing Mr. Trump.
But Mr. Vance has been embraced by the technology and cryptocurrency worlds. Mr. Musk, who lobbied for Mr. Vance’s pick, is expected to donate to at least one outside group supporting the Republican ticket. Others who encouraged Mr. Trump to choose Mr. Vance as a running mate include Chamath Palihapitiya, the investor, and David Sacks, an entrepreneur.
Meanwhile, President Biden is not winning many converts from the right-leaning financial world with his recent embrace of a nationwide cap in rents, statements that they see as antagonistic to big business, and high profile support from Senator Bernie Sanders and other well-known liberals, several people said..
Many said they expect that Trump would remain friendly to business interests and include an extension of the corporate tax cuts signed in his first term and scheduled to expire next year. Mr. Trump said an interview published this week that he still favors lowering the rate, which Mr. Vance opposed before he was nominated.
Even some of those who were spurned by Mr. Trump’s choice continue to donate heavily to Senate and gubernatorial races.
And they are finding other uses for their cash.
Mr. Griffin, who has told associates he could give as much as $100 million to Republicans but hasn’t decided whether any of that will go to Mr. Trump’s campaign, earlier this week opened up his checkbook to buy a $45 million fossil of a Stegosaurus at auction.
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