Bill Ackman is turning on Trump because of tariffs. And he is not alone

Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, is pictured in New York City in December 2024. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

LONDON — Wealthy business leaders are turning on U.S. President Donald Trump over his plan to impose a colossal set of tariffs on America’s trading partners, as losses mount on stock markets around the world.

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, warned Sunday that going ahead with the new tariffs was tantamount to launching an “economic nuclear war.”

On Wednesday, Trump said he would impose significantly higher “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries that have the highest trade imbalances with the United States.

In a post on X, Ackman said “business investment will grind to a halt, (and) consumers will close their wallets” if the new levies do indeed come into force. “We will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate,” he added in the post, which was viewed 10.6 million times.

Unless Trump changes tack, “we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down,” the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management warned.

“What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war?” he said, adding that “the president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe.”

Already Trump’s baseline 10% tariff on all goods imports into the US went into effect Saturday, and dozens of economies are bracing for even higher levies starting Wednesday. Those harder-hit countries include major US trading partners China and the European Union, which face new duties of 34% and 20% respectively.

Other billionaires and wealthy business leaders have also openly criticized Trump’s tariff agenda in recent days as fear over its economic fallout gripped markets.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, warned Monday that the tariffs threatened to raise prices, drive the global economy into a downturn and weaken America’s standing in the world.

“The recent tariffs will likely increase inflation and are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession,” Dimon said in an annual letter to shareholders. “Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth.”

Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, founder of the Duquesne Family Office, an investment firm, said in a post on X Monday that he did “not support tariffs exceeding 10%.” Druckenmiller is worth an estimated $11 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Even Elon Musk — the world’s richest man and top Trump acolyte — said Sunday that he hoped for a “zero-tariff situation” between Europe and the US. In an interview with Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini via video link, Musk said he wanted to see an effective “free-trade zone” created between Europe and North America.

Echoing Ackman, Simon MacAdam, deputy chief global economist at consultancy Capital Economics, said businesses were likely to hold off making investments due, in large part, to the “sheer uncertainty” of Trump’s tariff policy.

“If you’re a mid-sized or even a large-cap company, you’re going to be very hesitant about what to do,” he said.

“If those tariffs are going to be negotiated back down again in a few months’ time, then you’d be wasting your time investing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in new plants… in the US,” he told CNN.

In his post, Ackman said the new tariffs were “massive” and “disproportionate,” saying: “This is not what we voted for.” He called for a 90-day “time out” in which Trump could negotiate with trading partners to “resolve unfair asymmetric tariffs deals.”

Trump has said his tariff agenda is designed to redress years of lopsided trade between America and its partners, caused, in his view, by other countries imposing steeper tariffs on US goods imported into their markets than the US does on theirs.

But investors are clearly not convinced by the wisdom of Trump’s plan. Stock markets in Asia and Europe plunged Monday and futures pointed to another bad day for US stocks, following Trump’s tariffs announcement last Wednesday.

Written by Anna Cooban, CNN