President Donald Trump publicly blasted Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, accusing the financial giant of “debanking” his conservative supporters.
Trump took Moynihan to task at Davos — the snooty Alpine talking shop for the self-styled global elite — over allegations that BofA cancelled the accounts of Christian activist groups, which sparked an outcry from more than a dozen state attorneys general nationwide.
“I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank,” the 47th commander-in-chief said by videolink from Washington, DC. “They don’t take conservative business.”
“And I don’t know if the regulators mandated that because of [President Joe] Biden or what,” he added as he responded to a question from Moynihan on his latest executive orders and the US economy. “I hope you’re going to open your banks to conservatives, because what you’re doing is wrong.”
In response, Moynihan side-stepped Trump’s allegations, instead turning his focus on to his firm’s sponsorship of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The top lender, which has its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, denied Trump’s debanking claims in a statement.
“We serve more than 70 million clients, we welcome conservatives and have no political litmus test,” a Bank of America spokesperson said.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares last year hit out at Bank of America over the canceling of the accounts of Christian ministry groups.
He also criticized their refusal to do business with firearm manufacturers, fossil fuel energy companies and firms contracted by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
BofA also came under fire four years ago from Republicans after it handed over consumer information to FBI and Treasury Department as part of a probe into the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol.
Even Trump’s youngest son, Barron, 18, suffered from alleged bias by one unnamed US lender who refused to open an account for him after the end of his first administration, according to a new memoir by First Lady Melania Trump.
Earlier in the week at Davos, Moynihan, a 65-year-old lawyer and investment banker in the top job since 2010, had praised Trump’s new administration as being “a good thing” for business.
“When you talk to the people around here, from all over the world, [in] business, it’s the No. 1 place to invest. Not by a little bit, by a lot,” he told Fox Business on Wednesday.
“You go in and say now, I’m going to move the regulation back, and now I’m going to create even better conditions for investment.”
Moynihan also chairs the Brown University board of trustees and became embroiled in a scandal last year when the Ivy League school was rocked by pro-Hamas protests on campus.
Hard-left student campaigners demanded that Brown’s endowment fund cut ties with firms they argued have been “complicit in human rights abuses” against Palestinians.
The Brown Divest Coalition struck a deal with college bosses for a vote to be held this October in return for ending the months of Israel-bashing demonstrations.
That agreement angered billionaire real estate mogul Barry Sternlicht who paused donations to his alma mater and sparked the resignation of one trustee, New York hedge funder Joseph Edelman.
The Moynihan-led Brown trustees eventually voted down the divestment proposal on Oct. 10 last year.
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