Allies of President Trump are angling for a showdown with tariff-bashing hedge fund mogul Ken Griffin at a glitzy Los Angeles shindig for financial elites this week — with Steve Bannon casting it as “nationalists versus globalists in Beverly Hills,” The Post has learned.
Citadel boss Griffin traditionally hosts the VIP champagne-fueled welcome soirée at the Milken Institute Global Conference, an annual gathering for America’s top corporate titans dubbed the “Davos of the West,” and is one of the California forum’s main sponsors.
But this year, as he helps open the up-to $50,000-a-head boondoggle at the Beverly Hilton, Griffin will face a rival reception hosted at the same hour at the Peninsula Beverly Hills next door — steathily organized by senior Trump advisor Richard Grenell.
An invite to Grenell’s uber-exclusive, behind-closed-door event obtained by The Post will also feature brief remarks from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that kicks off at 4 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday.
“It will be your only chance of talking to Bessent in private,” said one source, who said that a few dozen hand-picked heads of state and Wall Street titans would be in attendance.
Sources close to the organizers, Tactic Global, a DC-based consultancy, said the event — which has not been formally announced — had just 75 places.
Sources told The Post that the rival event was set up after Griffin repeatedly irked the administration with his relentless public criticism of the president’s trade and immigration policies.
“It will be nationalists versus the globalists in Beverly Hills,” former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told The Post.
The Post has approached a Citadel spokesperson for comment.
Griffin, worth an estimated $42 billion, has blasted Trump for allegedly “eroding” the American “brand” over his Liberation Day April 2 announcement at the White House over his plans to slap tariffs on imported goods in a bid to bring back jobs to the U.S.
“We put that brand at risk,” Griffin said last month. “It could take a very long time to remove the tarnish from the brand.”
Bannon slammed Griffin as “an out-of-touch, clueless billionaire” who “helped to fuel populist nationalism” in the US.
“Ken Griffin said his most important effort politically was to stop populism. It’s done the exact opposite,” Bannon told The Post. “We were able to use him as what people hate about the superwealthy in this country.
The GOP megadonor also snubbed now-Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent by calling for Trump to appoint one of his main rivals, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, to the job.
Sources familiar with the matter told The Post in November that Rowan’s bid to serve in the current administration was a “non-starter” for the then-president-elect because of his opposition to tariffs.
Griffin also refused to publicly endorse Trump before his crushing electoral victory over the hapless Kamala Harris, only later to admit to having voted for the real estate mogul.
“And building his new Versailles down in Palm Beach only reinforces that he’s got the political instincts of Louis XVI,” Bannon added, referring to the long-deposed French monarch’s residence outside of Paris.
Bannon’s comments were a thinly veiled dig at how Griffin was building a $1B, 20-acre mega-estate that is just a stone’s throw away from Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club, as The Post exclusively reported in October 2023.
It came after he relocated his Citadel investment firm from Chicago to the sunnier, tax-friendly climes of Miami in 2022.
The 28th Milken Institute Global Conference aims to use free market principles to fix social problems.
It claims its “diverse, forward-thinking community” aims to explore solutions that pave the way for a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient future, which starts later today in Los Angeles.
Delegates will be able to hear the thoughts of former first lady Jill Biden, who has just landed a top job with the Milken Institute, a think tank endowed by former Drexel Burnham Lambert banker Michael Milken.
Stressed-out billionaires can also enjoy yoga classes, guided meditations and wellness garden “healing sessions” in between their packed schedules, according to the conference program.
Milken, once considered Wall Street’s “Junk Bond King,” experienced a fall from grace after his 1989 indictment in an insider trading probe.
After pleading guilty to securities violations, he served about two years in prison and has since devoted his life to philanthropic efforts.
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