(Bloomberg) -- Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder of the Citadel financial empire, plans to give $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund after declining to donate to his campaign during this year’s race.
Griffin has made similar contributions before, including for Trump’s 2017 inauguration and President Joe Biden’s 2021 swearing-in.
“I’m sure you’ll see me listed again as a contributor to the inauguration,” he said Monday after an appearance at a Miami-Dade League of Cities event.
The influential financier is joining the likes of Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. in chipping in for Trump’s inauguration next month as more companies look to build constructive relationships with the incoming administration. Griffin gave more than $100 million to pro-Republican political action committees in this presidential cycle, but none of that money went directly to support Trump’s campaign.
Griffin’s previous donations include $1 million for Trump’s 2017 inauguration and $500,000 for Biden’s in 2021, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
He reiterated his reservations about Trump’s potential trade policies. Trump for his second term is again vowing to impose sweeping new tariffs, including across-the-board tariffs of 10% to 20% on all foreign goods and levies as high as 60% on Chinese products.
“I’m generally opposed to tariffs and haven’t been subtle about this,” Griffin said. “It’s one part of his economic agenda, and we’ll see where that lands.”
But he added that he was looking forward to working with Trump.
“I had a really constructive working relationship with him and his team during the first administration,” Griffin said. “I have no doubt that if there were a need for me to reach the president on a matter of substance, we’d be on the phone in a minute.”
At the Miami-Dade event earlier, Griffin said he expected a lighter regulatory touch from Trump compared with Biden.
“From my vantage point, the end of the regulatory onslaught is a hallmark,” he said. “We were seeing regulation for the sake of regulation.”
--With assistance from Bill Allison.
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