JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon says he has mended his relationship with Elon Musk

JPMorgan Chase executive director Jaime Dimon On Wednesday he said he and tech billionaire Elon Musk have smoothed over their previously contentious relationship.

“Elon and I hugged each other,” Dimon told CNBC in a television interview at the annual World Economic Forum event in Davos, Switzerland. “He came to one of our conferences and he and I had a nice long talk. We worked out some of our differences.”

Dimon praised Musk’s various companies, including Tesla, space exploration company SpaceX and Neuralink, a startup seeking to develop brain-computer interface systems.

“That man is our Einstein,” the JPMorgan boss said. “I would like to help him and his companies as much as we can.”

Dimon’s statements come after the American banking giant. Late last year he agreed to drop a lawsuit filed a lawsuit against Tesla in 2021, seeking $162.2 million plus fees in a dispute over stock collateral transactions. Previously, JPMorgan had alleged that Tesla had violated the terms of a contract the companies signed regarding the revaluation of warrants.

Tesla was supposed to deliver shares or cash if its stock price exceeded a contractually agreed upon “strike price” on a given expiration date.

The conflict arose when JP Morgan made adjustments to the value of the warrants 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 returned to the idea. to privatize the electricity company. automobile manufacturer.

The SEC later charged Musk with securities fraud. Tesla and Musk agreed to pay $20 million each to settle the lawsuit.

Musk is now playing a key role in newly inaugurated President Donald Trump’s administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Dimon said he wants to “be useful to them.”

“The government needs to be more accountable, it needs 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.”