On June 3rd, it was reported that Elon Musk and Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase (little Morgan), have long been at odds. But recently, Musk gave a speech at the JPMorgan Tech Summit, showing signs of reconciliation between the two, and also opening the door for possible cooperation between the companies again. The following is the translation:
After years of disputes, Musk and Jamie Dimon had a conversation at a high-level summit of JPMorgan, which reopened the possibility for their potential cooperation in the future.
Since the conflict in 2016, the relationship between Musk and Dimon has been tense. Musk's Tesla and SpaceX companies have refused to cooperate with JPMorgan, and the largest bank in the US has not shown favor to Musk's companies either.
But since the easing in March this year, the two seem to have started to explore new ways of cooperation. At that time, Musk participated in the first JPMorgan Tech Conference and talked freely with Dimon in front of an audience including Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, and Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. According to people familiar with the matter, since then, it seems that JPMorgan and Musk's empire have found the possibility of future cooperation.
Still, there is an important hurdle. The legal dispute between JPMorgan and Tesla began three years ago, involving a disputed transaction amount of 162 million US dollars.
Even so, the progress of both sides is still worthy of attention. Just over a year ago, it seemed unlikely that JPMorgan and Musk would find a way to cooperate.
As far as JPMorgan is concerned, the relationship with Tesla is extremely bad, Musk testified in a court hearing in January 2023. In short, JPMorgan hates Tesla.
Musk is the type of client that JPMorgan and its CEO Dimon are eager to pursue. As one of the richest people in the world, Musk is a potential client for wealth management consulting, and he also has several companies that require bank, fundraising and trading services. Although there are many challenges in serving Musk - the loans provided by other banks for his Twitter acquisition have significantly depreciated - most bankers hope to maintain a good relationship with him to obtain his various transactions and potential IPOs such as SpaceX.
In May this year, JPMorgan hired Eric Gray, a super-high-net-worth wealth manager based in Los Angeles. According to people close to him, Musk has always been one of his clients.
For Musk's business empire, they can get the opportunity to access the most financially strong bank in the US and a broader network of advisors and services.
This mutual interest makes their dispute particularly unusual on Wall Street, and it is precisely this mutual interest that may open the door to lucrative opportunities for both sides.
JPMorgan has never been the most important advisor for Tesla - this role has always been played by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. But Tesla has indeed used some of JPMorgan's banking services. This relationship started to crack since 2016.
At that time, Musk hoped that JPMorgan, one of the largest auto loan institutions in the US, could provide financial leasing services for Tesla's electric cars. Reportedly, bank executives were hesitant and did not know how to evaluate the life of the car battery.
People familiar with the matter said that Musk was furious with this decision. He called the then head of JPMorgan's consumer banking business and shouted and threatened to withdraw Tesla's business. Musk's call ended with fuck you.
Dimon was angry. He called Musk back and told him that JPMorgan would not be intimidated.
In the following years, Musk established close cooperative relationships with many of JPMorgan's competitors, and his business版图expanded to six companies. Data from global financial data provider Dealogic shows that since 2010, Goldman Sachs has received nearly 90 million US dollars in fees from Tesla and SpaceX. While JPMorgan stood o n the opposite side of Musk, representing the Twitter company in Musk's acquisition.
Musk testified in a lawsuit unrelated to the two last year: All of Tesla's commercial banking business used to be managed by JPMorgan. But when I asked Dimon to support Tesla's car leasing business, he refused... So I withdrew all of JPMorgan's commercial banking business, which made JPMorgan very disgusted with Tesla and me.
This animosity became public at the end of 2021, when JPMorgan took the unusual step of suing Tesla and Musk, demanding compensation of 162 million US dollars. JPMorgan said that Tesla owed the amount of a transaction in 2014. Tesla counter-sued, claiming that part of JPMorgan's anger was that it failed to obtain Musk's business.
Musk said at that time: If JPMorgan does not withdraw the lawsuit, he will give them one-star bad review on Yelp.
These lawsuits are still ongoing, and it is not clear whether the improvement in the relationship between Dimon and Musk will have an impact on this.
But in the past year, the signs of thawing in their relationship have been shown.
In November last year, when asked about his view of Musk at the DealBook Conference held by The New York Times, Dimon said: He is obviously a very smart man and has made incredible contributions to humanity. But you know, he has his strengths and weaknesses.
In January this year, Musk praised some comments made by Dimon on social media. He wrote on social media, Jamie Dimon is quite right.
In March, JPMorgan held a tech summit in Big Sky Resort in Montana. This is the first elite-level gathering with the theme of the technology industry held by JPMorgan. To attract more audiences to participate, they invited an unexpected guest: Musk.
Dimon and Musk talked on the stage for more than an hour, covering a series of topics such as artificial intelligence. According to people who know the situation of the event, the two showed good tacit understanding on the stage, and Musk showed respect for Dimon's views.
According to a source, Musk also brought his young son to the event.
Musk also visited Dimon's suite in the resort. The original plan was for a brief exchange, but it actually lasted for more than an hour.
According to people familiar with the matter, after the event, Dimon decided that the bank could try to resume business dealings with Musk.