President-elect Donald Trump rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday after vowing an economic boom to a cheering crowd of traders 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 becoming TIME’s “Person of the Year” for the second time.
Trump was flanked by Vice President-elect JD Vance, incoming first lady Melania Trump, NYSE President Lynn Martin and two of Trump’s children, Ivanka and Tiffany, as the bell chimed.
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 warmth 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 Target and Pershing Square‘s Bill Ackman.
At one point, the room broke into a chant of “U-S-A.”
Trump’s entourage also included his pick for Health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his Treasury pick, Scott Bessent, his choice for Interior secretary, Doug Burgum, and his Commerce secretary pick, Howard Lutnick.
In brief remarks beforehand, Trump promised that his incoming administration would usher in “an economy the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before.”
“We’re going to give tremendous incentive like no other country has,” Trump told the moneyed crowd, including by cutting taxes “very substantially.”
Trump reiterated his plans to boost U.S. oil drilling, promising that doing so would lower inflation and bring down grocer prices.
That claim contrasted with what he told TIME when asked if his administration would be a failure if grocery bills stay high.
“I don’t think so. Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up,” Trump told the magazine.
He also repeated his vow to slash the corporate tax rate — which was already lowered 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 build 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 election over President Joe Biden for the recent gains in the stock market, and noted that he is coming back into the White House with stronger ties to some of the country’s richest and most influential people.
“[Meta CEO] Mark 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 coming up next week, and I want to get ideas from them,” Trump told Cramer, who runs the members-only CNBC Investing Club.
Hedge fund magnate Bessent, Trump’s pick to replace Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary, told Cramer the next administration will benefit both Wall Street and Main Street.
“I think we’re going to see under President Trump Wall 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 contributed to this report.
