Chuck Darwin<p>For all Trump’s success in winning back reluctant conservative billionaires, <br>many of them have seen firsthand the ways in which his erratic behavior <br>and anti-market ideas <br>could disrupt their businesses and the wider economy. </p><p>After Trump became President, he asked Schwarzman to enlist high-profile business executives to serve on an advisory council. </p><p>The participants included <a href="https://c.im/tags/Musk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Musk</span></a>; <br><a href="https://c.im/tags/Jamie" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Jamie</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Dimon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Dimon</span></a>, the C.E.O. of JPMorgan Chase; <br><a href="https://c.im/tags/Mary" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Mary</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Barra" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Barra</span></a>, of General Motors; <br><a href="https://c.im/tags/Bob" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Bob</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Iger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Iger</span></a>, of Disney; <br><a href="https://c.im/tags/Larry" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Larry</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Fink" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Fink</span></a>, of BlackRock; <br>and <a href="https://c.im/tags/Jack" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Jack</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Welch" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Welch</span></a>, the former C.E.O. of General Electric. </p><p>It was a perfect Trump setup: </p><p>the biggest brand names in American business would come to the White House, <br>kiss his ring, <br>and offer free advice. </p><p>But, as one of the panel’s members recalled, <br>the first session quickly devolved into an argument between Trump and several participants over his false allegation that China was manipulating its currency. </p><p>In the summer of 2017, following Trump’s comments about there being <br>“very fine people on both sides” of the white-supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, <br>the group convened an emergency call and decided to disband. </p><p>After Schwarzman conveyed the news to the White House, Trump preëmptively tweeted that he had decided to shut the group down.</p><p>Early this summer, Trump’s campaign surprised the Business Roundtable, <br>a members-only organization of corporate C.E.O.s, <br>with a last-minute acceptance for the ex-President to appear at the group’s quarterly meeting in Washington. </p><p>Andrew Ross Sorkin, the Times’ financial columnist and a host of “Squawk Box,” on CNBC, <br>reported that even C.E.O.s at the meeting who were sympathetic to Trump had found the former President 🔸uninformed and ♦️“remarkably meandering.” </p><p>A source in the room told me that Trump’s digressions included complaints about his court cases and “crazy rants about Venezuelan immigrants.”</p><p>Soon after the event, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, <br>a professor at Yale University who tracks the political preferences of America’s corporate leaders, <br>wrote in an op-ed for the Times that not a single Fortune 100 C.E.O. had donated to Trump by June of this year, <br>something he called a “telling data point.” </p><p>In fact, Sonnenfeld argued, the lack of giving to Trump from traditional Republican donors in the business community was the real fund-raising story, <br>“a major break from overwhelming business and executive support for Republican Presidential candidates dating back over a century.” </p><p>Sonnenfeld told me that such giving “fell off a cliff” when Trump became the Party’s nominee<br>—going from more than a quarter of Fortune 100 C.E.O.s in 2012, <br>when Mitt Romney was the G.O.P. candidate, <br>💥to zero in 2016. </p><p>In 2020, he noted, only two Fortune 100 C.E.O.s had given to Trump<br>—someone in the energy sector who is no longer running his company <br>and <a href="https://c.im/tags/Safra" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Safra</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Catz" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Catz</span></a>, the C.E.O. of the Oracle software corporation. </p><p>One lobbyist who speaks with many corporate C.E.O.s told me, <br>“Unanimously, they hate the Biden Administration’s policies. <br>But I think almost unanimously they would much rather deal with that than the risk of catastrophic disaster from a Trump Administration.” </p><p>By fall, the only Business Roundtable member publicly backing Trump was Schwarzman.</p>