President-elect Donald Trump’s billionaire supporter, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, supported letting presidents influence Federal Reserve policy.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, urged the president to run the Fed in a social media post on Thursday. Musk responded on Friday by posting the “100” emoji, which is intended to agree.
Sen. Lee used the hashtag “#EndtheFed” to punctuate his message.
Musk’s quick remark indicates a larger push for Fed independence that may materialize during the upcoming Trump administration.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell stated on Thursday that he would not resign if Trump requested it. That signaled the resuscitation of a potentially tense relationship between the president-elect and the Fed head.
The goal of the Fed’s independence tradition is to allow the central bank to make choices about monetary policy, including changing interest rates, based only on the state of the American economy in the future.
However, Trump was not afraid to defy convention and openly criticize Powell and his policy choices throughout his first term in office.
In addition, Trump has hinted that if he were to win the presidency again in 2024, he would allow himself to influence Fed policy.
During a press conference in August at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump stated, “I think the president should have at least [a] say in there.”
“I believe I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people who would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman, and I made a lot of money and was very successful in my case.”
