Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., during the 2024 Financial Markets Quality Conference at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, September 17, 2024.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said on Wednesday that he and tech billionaire Elon Musk had ironed out their previously contentious relationship.
“Elon and I hugged,” Dimon told CNBC in a TV interview at the World Economic Forum’s annual event in Davos, Switzerland. “He came to one of our conferences, [and] he and I had a nice, long talk. We have resolved some of our differences.”
Dimon praised a variety of Musk’s companies, including Tesla, space exploration company SpaceX and Neuralink — a startup that wants to develop brain-computer interface systems.
“The guy is our Einstein,” the JPMorgan boss said. “I would like to be of assistance to him and his companies as much as we can.”
Dimon’s remarks come after the US banking giant agreed to drop the lawsuit at the end of last year filed against Tesla in 2021, seeking $162.2 million plus fees in a dispute over stock warrant transactions. Previously, JPMorgan had alleged that Tesla violated the terms of the agreement the companies signed regarding the repricing of the warranties.
Tesla was supposed to deliver stock or cash if the stock price exceeded a contractually agreed “strike price” by a certain expiration date.
The conflict arose when JP Morgan adjusted the value of the warrant after Musk tweeted in August 2018 that he was considering taking Tesla private for $420 a share, and again a few weeks later when the Tesla boss backed away from the idea of privatizing the automaker’s electricity .
The SEC later charged Musk with securities fraud. Tesla and Musk agreed to pay $20 million each to settle the lawsuit.
Musk now plays a key role in President Donald Trump’s recently inaugurated administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Dimon said he wanted to “be of help to them.”
“Government has to be more accountable, it has to be more efficient. It should be results-based. I mean, I would say department by department. So I wish them the best,” Dimon said. “It’s going to be complicated. The federal government is complicated.”
