Ken Griffin Says ‘Thank You' to Elon Musk, Attacks Trump Tariffs
By and Dasha Afanasieva
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Citadel founder Ken Griffin said he's grateful that Elon Musk is taking time away from his companies to slash government spending but offered blunt criticisms of President Donald Trump's rhetoric on tariffs.
'He will do what it takes to win,' Griffin, 56, said Tuesday at the UBS Financial Services Conference in Miami, referring to fellow billionaire Musk, who's chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies.
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The rise of the tech right The Bay Area tech scene has always to my mind been best understood as left-libertarian — socially liberal, but suspicious of big government and excited about new things from cryptocurrency to charter cities to mosquito gene drives to genetically engineered superbabies to tooth bacteria. That array of attitudes sometimes puts them at odds with governments (and much of the public, which tends to be much less welcoming of new technology). The tech world valorizes founders and doers, and everyone knows two or three stories about a company that only succeeded because it was willing to break some city regulations. Lots of founders are immigrants; lots are LGBTQ+. For a long time, this set of commitments put tech firmly on the political left — and indeed tech employees overwhelmingly vote and donate to the Democratic Party. Related The AI that apparently wants Elon Musk to die But over the last 10 years, I think three things changed. 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