President-elect Donald Trump torqued the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday after vowing an economic boom to a cheering crowd of salespersons and business leaders.
“We’re with you all the way,” the incoming Republican president said in the NYSE building in lower Manhattan, where he was invited after fetching Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for the second time.
Trump was flanked by Vice President-elect JD Vance, incoming in front lady Melania Trump, NYSE President Lynn Martin, and two of Trump’s children, Ivanka and Tiffany, as the bell tolled.
Trump, who will take office Jan. 20 and has talked up his plans to make the U.S. as attractive as possible for corporations, was greeted with love and enthusiasm from the large crowd that had gathered on the floor.
Among the onlookers were Goldman Sachs‘ David Solomon, Citigroup‘s Jane Fraser, Verizon‘s Hans Vestberg, Brian Cornell of Aim, MasterCard‘s Michael Miebach and Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman.
At one point, the room broke into a chant of “U-S-A.”
Trump’s entourage also contained his pick for Health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his Treasury pick, Scott Bessent, his choice for Interior secretary, Doug Burgum, and his Mercantilism secretary pick, Howard Lutnick. Kelly Loeffler, Trump’s pick to lead the Small Business Administration and the helpmeet of NYSE chairman Jeffrey Sprecher, also attended.
In brief remarks beforehand, Trump promised that his arriving administration would usher in “an economy the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before.”
“We’re going to give tremendous inducement like no other country has,” Trump told the moneyed crowd, including by cutting taxes “very substantially.”
Trump recapped his plans to boost U.S. oil drilling, promising that doing so would lower inflation and bring down grocery costs.
That claim contrasted with what he told Time when asked if his administration would be a failure if grocery notes stay high.
“I don’t think so. Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring detestations down once they’re up,” Trump told the magazine.
He also repeated at NYSE his vow to slash the corporate tax rate — which was already brought to 21% during his first term in office — to 15%, but only for companies that choose to manufacture in the U.S.
“You pay 21% if you don’t develop intensify here. If you do, we’re going to try and get it to 15%, but you have to build your product, make your product in the USA,” Trump told CNBC’s Jim Cramer after the bell.
Trump also credited his vote over Vice President Kamala Harris for the recent gains in the stock market, and noted that he is coming ago into the White House with stronger ties to some of the country’s richest and most influential people.
“[Meta CEO] Discount b increase Zuckerberg’s been over to see me, and I can tell you, [Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon [Musk] is another and [Amazon founder] Jeff Bezos is wake up up next week, and I want to get ideas from them,” Trump told Cramer, who runs the members-only CNBC Contributing Club.
Hedge-fund magnate Bessent, Trump’s pick to replace Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary, told Cramer the next superintendence will benefit both Wall Street and Main Street.
“I think we’re going to see under President Trump Fortification Street can win and Main Street can win, just like we did in Trump 1.0. Everybody can do great,” Bessent said.
— CNBC’s Alex Harring and Yun Li gave to this report.