Citadel Ken Griffin CEO was interviewed by the chairman of Michael Milken (not photographed) of Milken Institute at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2025 held in Beverly Hills, California, USA on May 7, 2025.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Citadel CEO Ken Griffin knocked the Trump administration on Thursday for dealing with large corporations to avoid the full scope of tariff policies explaining such an agreement as anti-American.
“Does our country intend to support Connected on a large scale?” Griffin told CNBC’s Sarah Eisen in an exclusive interview from Miami. “It’s not an American story.”
“When the state becomes involved in choosing winners and losers, there’s only one way this game can end.
Griffin’s comments come to allow US companies to compete to agree with the White House and avoid the most sudden collection of imports from many foreign countries. Multiple famous businesses including apple and nvidia Over the past few months, we have announced large-scale domestic investments. This has been seen as a way to gain favor from the Trump administration.

“If I went down the tariff path, I talked about my concerns about Croney capitalism,” Griffin said. “The lines outside the White House of all businesses claim to be arguing why they should be exempt from paying customs duties on what they import into their products.”
Wall Street Big Wig said tariffs could be considered similar to “national sales tax.” Because collections have a high percentage of household incomes from low-earning players, Griffin said there is a “fairness and fairness issue” involved in Trump’s tariff policy.
Griffin warned that businesses should act cautiously when it comes to trying to gain favor with the current White House team. He said these companies can find themselves hated or have to make a new deal when new people take away the best offices of the country.
“It’s the government’s involvement in choosing winners and losers, and we should step on that water carefully,” Griffin said. “In fact, we should leave from it. That’s where the crocodile lives.”
“Core competency is not about being able to drive innovation,” he added. “That means you can drive a proper favor from DC.”
