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Trump’s Carried Interest Insurrection

Wall Street hasn’t had much beef with Trump 2.0 thus far, outside of the J6 pardons and his misguided response to the midair collision over DCA. But now that he’s taking on the carried interest loophole, things may change.

Donald Trump
My survey of elite private equity executives dredged up similar sentiments—no one wanted the loophole closed, obviously, but they felt that Trump was being Trump, appealing to his base, and they are perfectly happy to be pilloried as long as the president doesn’t actually follow through and pick their pockets. Photo: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
February 9, 2025

Last week, I shared a conversation with one of my most faithful Wall Street correspondents, who relayed the surprisingly bipartisan support that Donald Trump appeared to be enjoying among the top machers of the financial services industry. Other sources confirmed that the banker and investor class is pretty much happy with the first three weeks of Trump II, save for a few offenses, including the blanket pardoning of January 6 insurrectionists and Trump’s bizarre decision to blame the deadly plane-helicopter collision above the Potomac on D.E.I. policies. The dismantling of USAID and other parts of the federal bureaucracy, the alleged tampering with U.S. Treasury payment systems—these issues elicited little more than a shrug.