Ken Griffin: Trump's Damage to US Brand will take Lifetime to Fix

Thursday, April 24, 2025

The head of one of the world's biggest hedge funds has condemned President Trump's "nonsensical" trade war and the damage it has wreaked to the United States' brand.

Posted by reinheitsgebot at 03:30 PM | 19 COMMENTS | permalink

Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin donated $100 million to Republican candidates in 2024, now he's complaining that the American "brand" is being eroded.

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-- Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 6:19 PM

Comments

"The United States was more than just a nation. It's a brand."

As if the creator of Trump Steaks and Trump University needs to be lectured to on the the value of a brand. MAGATs everywhere know a business man when they see one. Bankrupting casinos is the tell.

#1 | Posted by censored at 2025-04-24 08:41 AM

After "re-branding," post-WWII Germany and Japan were able to re-join the international community within ~20 years. Maybe America can at least begin its rehabilitation after the 2026 mid-term and 2028 presidential elections. But in 2029 the US will need a Marshall Fund to help our poor people and will be asking for lots of forgiveness from our old friends and allies. The next Democratic POTUS will rescind Trumpf's imbecilic executive orders, but will Congress repeal all of the terrible legislation from 2025-2029? How will a Democratic Congress claw back the titanic amounts of wealth siphoned off by the Trumpf junta? How many needless deaths will occur between 2025 and 2029 that a Democratic Congress can't bring back to life? This is not just an issue of re-branding, but re-construction.

#2 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-04-24 09:03 AM

To paraphrase, "It's the Heritage Foundation, stupid"

#3 | Posted by hamburglar at 2025-04-24 10:31 AM

"The United States was more than just a nation. It's a brand."

That's what they hate about the United States.
People coming from all over the world because of how good our brand is.
Brown people, Muslim people, Indian people.

America is supposed to be a White Majority Brand.
The past 80 years of increasing cultural diversity has ruined the White Majority American brand, according to Republicans.

#4 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-04-24 10:32 AM

It's a well known fact that everything trump is involved with is damaged or dies.

Thank maga.

#5 | Posted by bat4255 at 2025-04-24 04:08 PM

He's the brain damaged doing brand damage.

The Amb to Norway was in the WH today, rolling his eyes as Trump talks about Ukraine.

btw....Eye-rolling Trump is something Trumpers should be practicing for when they give him the, "GW, who?" treatment a couple of years from now.

(unless he's the AC; then things are going to turn 'beautiful' for him pretty soon, with a treaty in the ME and the Market recovering)

#6 | Posted by Corky at 2025-04-24 04:12 PM

If you use the euro as a reference currency, [Americans] have become 20 per cent poorer in four weeks.

Bravo, stinky!

#7 | Posted by reinheitsgebot at 2025-04-24 05:05 PM

Where are the usual sheep to bleat "but Biden...!"

#8 | Posted by e1g1 at 2025-04-24 06:47 PM

Ken Griffin is everything wrong with America today. He has a net worth of like $50B and never produced or invented an actual product. Instead, he got wealth as a middle man in the FIRE asset inflation that has sucked the productive life out the the US economy and turned it into paper pushing only.

Democrats and Republicans alike should be united in stating that the Wall Street-ization of America has been horrible. How many MIT and Stanford grads have wasted their lives writing financial algorithms rather than inventing actual products or curing diseases? How much money has been stolen by the fund managers from their middle class investors in fees?

#9 | Posted by ScottS at 2025-04-24 10:32 PM

If I were boss, we would return to having a draft, where all people, male and female would serve either two years in private public service, or one and a half years in the military. As it is we are rapidly becoming the land of the billionaire oligarchs, and the rest of us.

#10 | Posted by Hughmass at 2025-04-25 08:12 AM

#10: Agree. US society will have an hourglass shape with a large bottom for the masses. The Trumpf junta is stripping away federal programs and the civil service that helped people rise to a more secure middle class. About military service, the oligarchs and their children will avoid it, like Dan Quayle being over-billeted in an Army National Guard unit during Vietnam, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, Dotard Trumpf, Jack Dempsey during WWI, and "Dubya" purposely flunking his flight physical to avoid going to Vietnam with his TXAANG unit. All of these above, though, are happy to send someone else's child to war.

#11 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-04-25 08:43 AM

The damage Trump, his goons, investor-backers, and enablers have wrought is stunning.
The youngest poster on the DR could live a long life and, at the end, never see the US come close to repairing the damage.
If you voted for this, please don't say, "But I didn't vote for this."
Of course you did.
Voting to replace an American Dream with an American Nightmare?
It's called shared responsibility and, brother, do you ever own it.

#12 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2025-04-25 08:52 AM

#12: Hi Doc: Yup, who the hell wants to keep hearing "but I didn't vote for this?" Someone on DR wrote this apologia is the equivalent of "I was just following orders." Americans don't want to read or hear this irritating mantra again. We'd rather hear or read: "Please forgive me, Doc, I voted for this" or "I apologize Coriolanus, I own this."

#13 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2025-04-25 09:53 AM

#13
Yup. And that makes me wander back to the first time I saw the Vietnam War Wall in D.C., thirty-some years ago. It was early of an autumn Sunday morning, eerily foggy, quiet. Walking along, I watched that architectural testament to lives shattered emerge slowly, shadowlike, upcoming from the earth. Wandering alone I looked for a couple of names, did a bit of thinking, and left. And I thought, what a shame LBJ, McNamara - and all the others who bore responsibility for why that monument existed - couldn't have been there, on regular rotation, on their hands and knees, with toothbrushes and buckets of soapy water, scrubbing to keep spotless that monument to the horrible thing they did.

#14 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2025-04-25 10:17 AM

I agree with him but Ken Griffith is the LAST person anybody should listen to.

#15 | Posted by eberly at 2025-04-25 10:24 AM

Is it okay if we listen to Ken Griffin?

#16 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-04-25 10:26 AM

I would suggest that E-BOAZ-berle is the last person I'd take advice from.

#17 | Posted by Wardog at 2025-04-25 11:22 AM

The damage the Joe Biden-ites and his do nothing Hunter Biden offspring have done to USA will never be fixed.

Listen to the political trash that comes out of Rosey O'Donnell as a small example of bad news with no positive upside.

They want illegals taking what is yours.

#18 | Posted by Robson at 2025-04-25 06:22 PM

@#!8 ... The damage the Joe Biden-ites and his do nothing Hunter Biden offspring have done to USA will never be fixed. ...

Aside from the apparently obligatory, and irrelevant, Hunter Biden reference, what evidence do you have of the damage your bot-alias ascribes to Biden-ites?

#19 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-04-25 06:32 PM

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