Billionaire Ken Griffin says Republicans blundered in extending Trump's tax cuts last year without tackling the debt

Griffin’s skepticism is notable since he’s long served as a Republican megadonor. The Citadel CEO has poured at least $32 million into super PACs backing House and Senate Republican candidates in the 2026 midterm elections, according to Open Secrets, the nonpartisan election group.

‘We didn’t have the fiscal space’

Griffin contrasted the economic landscape in 2018 — shortly after the corporate and individual tax cuts were enacted — with last year. At the time, the first Trump administration and advocates of the initial tranche of tax cuts argued it would pack a punch in boosting wages and labor productivity, which Griffin said he believed.

Fast-forward to 2025, when the cuts were set to expire and the national debt has barreled past $40 trillion following a wave of pandemic-related spending, as well as additional spending on defense, Social Security and Medicare.

Griffin argued the case was weaker for passing the tax-and-spending package last year initially branded by Trump as the Big Beautiful Bill.

“We spent as much money during the pandemic as a percent of GDP that we basically spent to win World War II,” Griffin said. “That was what was the cost of us sitting on our couches. So we didn’t have the fiscal space to renew the tax cuts, in my opinion, a year and change ago.”

‘Grow the d-mn economy’

Griffin reiterated a belief that’s common among Wall Street executives: The U.S. must rein in its burgeoning national debt. “We need to put our fiscal house in order,” Griffin said.