President Donald Trump said he’s tapping the country’s most prominent business executives, including Jamie Dimon, Tim Cook and Doug McMillon, to help revive the economy as the coronavirus pandemic shows signs of easing in some parts of the country.
“They’re going to give us some ideas,” Trump said Tuesday at a briefing in the Rose Garden, where he unveiled a sprawling list of dozens of CEOs from industries ranging from agriculture to defense. He said the leaders would participate in “economic revival” groups, but didn’t elaborate on how they may shape the administration’s policies.
In addition to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Dimon, Trump’s list included a slate of executives from Wall Street: Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone Group Inc.; Brian Moynihan of Bank of America Corp.; David Solomon of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.; James Gorman of Morgan Stanley; Michael Corbat of Citigroup Inc.; and Charles Scharf of Wells Fargo & Co.
And in addition to Walmart Inc.’s McMillon, and Apple Inc.’s Cook, Trump’s list included: Darren Woods of Exxon Mobil Corp.; Satya Nadella of Microsoft Corp.; He also cited John Malone of Liberty Media Corp.; Fred Smith of FedEx Corp.; Oscar Munoz of United Airlines Inc.; Juan Luciano of Archer-Daniels-Midland Co.; David MacLennan of Cargill Inc.; Marillyn Hewson of Lockheed Martin Corp.; Kathy Warden of Northrop Grumman Corp. And James Quincey of Coca-Cola Co.
He named allies, including Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands Corp., but also Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.com Inc., who has been a repeated target of the president’s vitriol.
Trump said he would also be talking to executives and other leaders, including Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, by telephone.
The groups announced Tuesday appeared didn’t appear to be the formal economic task force that the president has recently said he would form.
Trump has been eager to end economy-stifling social-distancing measures almost as soon as he announced them, though last month he extended them until April 30 on the advice of government health experts.
Many of those same health officials have cautioned that lifting restrictions on May 1 may be too soon. But Trump’s economic advisers have intensified their efforts to persuade the president that the country should reopen to stave off economic ruin.
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