Allies of President Trump are angling for a showdown with tariff-bashing hedge fund mogul Ken Griffin at a glitzy Los Angeles shindig for monetary elites this week — with Steve Bannon casting it as “nationalists versus globalists in Beverly Hills,” The Submit has realized.
Citadel boss Griffin historically hosts the VIP champagne-fueled welcome soirée on the Milken Institute International Convention, an annual gathering for America’s high company titans dubbed the “Davos of the West,” and is likely one of the California discussion board’s fundamental sponsors.
However this yr, as he helps open the up-to $50,000-a-head boondoggle on the Beverly Hilton, Griffin will face a rival reception hosted on the identical hour on the Peninsula Beverly Hills subsequent door — steathily organized by senior Trump advisor Richard Grenell.
An invitation to Grenell’s uber-exclusive, behind-closed-door occasion obtained by The Submit can even function transient remarks from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that kicks off at 4 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday.
“It will be your only chance of talking to Bessent in private,” mentioned one supply, who mentioned that a couple of dozen hand-picked heads of state and Wall Avenue titans could be in attendance.
Sources near the organizers, Tactic International, a DC-based consultancy, mentioned the occasion — which has not been formally introduced — had simply 75 locations.
Sources informed The Submit that the rival occasion was arrange after Griffin repeatedly irked the administration together with his relentless public criticism of the president’s commerce and immigration insurance policies.
“It will be nationalists versus the globalists in Beverly Hills,” former White Home chief strategist Steve Bannon informed The Submit.
The Submit has approached a Citadel spokesperson for remark.
Griffin, value an estimated $42 billion, has blasted Trump for allegedly “eroding” the American “brand” over his Liberation Day April 2 announcement on the White Home over his plans to slap tariffs on imported items in a bid to convey again jobs to the U.S.
“We put that brand at risk,” Griffin mentioned final month. “It could take a very long time to remove the tarnish from the brand.”
Bannon slammed Griffin as “an out-of-touch, clueless billionaire” who “helped to fuel populist nationalism” within the US.
“Ken Griffin said his most important effort politically was to stop populism. It’s done the exact opposite,” Bannon informed The Submit. “We have been ready to make use of him as what individuals hate in regards to the superwealthy on this nation.
The GOP megadonor additionally snubbed now-Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent by calling for Trump to nominate one among his fundamental rivals, Apollo International Administration CEO Marc Rowan, to the job.
Sources aware of the matter informed The Submit in November that Rowan’s bid to serve within the present administration was a “non-starter” for the then-president-elect due to his opposition to tariffs.
Griffin additionally refused to publicly endorse Trump earlier than his crushing electoral victory over the hapless Kamala Harris, solely later to confess to having voted for the actual property mogul.
“And building his new Versailles down in Palm Beach only reinforces that he’s got the political instincts of Louis XVI,” Bannon added, referring to the long-deposed French monarch’s residence outdoors of Paris.
Bannon’s feedback have been a thinly veiled dig at how Griffin was constructing a $1B, 20-acre mega-estate that’s only a stone’s throw away from Trump’s personal Mar-a-Lago membership, as The Submit completely reported in October 2023.
It got here after he relocated his Citadel funding agency from Chicago to the sunnier, tax-friendly climes of Miami in 2022.
The twenty eighth Milken Institute International Convention goals to make use of free market ideas to repair social issues.
It claims its “diverse, forward-thinking community” goals to discover options that pave the way in which for a extra sustainable, equitable, and resilient future, which begins later at the moment in Los Angeles.
Delegates will be capable to hear the ideas of former first woman Jill Biden, who has simply landed a high job with the Milken Institute, a suppose tank endowed by former Drexel Burnham Lambert banker Michael Milken.
Burdened-out billionaires can even take pleasure in yoga courses, guided meditations and wellness backyard “healing sessions” in between their packed schedules, in keeping with the convention program.
Milken, as soon as thought of Wall Avenue’s “Junk Bond King,” skilled a fall from grace after his 1989 indictment in an insider buying and selling probe.
After pleading responsible to securities violations, he served about two years in jail and has since devoted his life to philanthropic efforts.
