Fortune 500 CEOs Have Made Their Choice Between Trump and Biden, Reveals Top Business School Prof.

Ahead of the 2024 presidential elections, Americans are finding it hard to make the right choice in November. While some have already made up their minds, others are still confused amid the possible rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Recently, a Yale Business School professor told CNBC who among the two candidates have support from Fortune 500 CEOs. 

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, who is the senior associate dean for leadership at the Yale School of Management, joined CNBC's host Andrew Ross Sorkin on Monday, June 24, 2024, to discuss The New York Times op-ed where he noted that many CEOs he works with don't support the Republican front-runner. However, he also weighed in on their opinions about the current POTUS Biden. 

In his op-ed, Sonnenfeld wrote, "I know this because I work with roughly 1,000 chief executives a year, running a school for them, which I started 35 years ago, and I speak with business leaders almost every day. Our surveys show that 60 to 70 percent of them are registered Republicans."

He continued that while the top corporate professionals aren't fully convinced with Biden and his policies, they can still tolerate him over Trump, "The reality is that the top corporate leaders working today, like many Americans, aren't entirely comfortable with either Mr. Trump or President Biden. But they largely like — or at least can tolerate — one of them. They truly fear the other." 

Fortune 500 is a list of accomplished businessmen compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations based on their total revenue for their respective fiscal years. It was conceptualized by Edgar P. Smith, a Fortune editor, first time in 1955 and includes both public and privately held companies. 

Sonnenfeld further revealed that 70% of the Fortune 500 are Republicans, despite, they are not in favor of Trump, citing the Jan.6 Capitol Riots and the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, after which the former president lost any chance of support from the best business leaders. 

"There are no Fortune 500 CEOs who are supporting former President Trump and that is a historic break going back to William Howard Taft and to Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan and the Bushes and everything, it's been anywhere from 40-50% public and financial support," the professor added. 

A Biden-Harris dedicated account @BidenHQ shared the video on X, formerly Twitter, and captioned, "Chief Executive Leadership Institute CEO Jeffrey Sonnenfeld: There are no Fortune 500 CEOs who are supporting Trump. That is a historic break. The Trump economic package frightens them. It's extremely inflationary. It'll lead to an increase in inflation and plunge the GDP. They'll be Biden voters. They don't want the fabric of society pulled apart." 

Meanwhile, host Sorkin pushed back Sonnenfeld's claims and said Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwarzman has backed Trump. To which, the Yale professor argued Blackstone is "not even a Fortune 400 company." Apparently, Blackstone has been listed in the top 500 in the past but Sonnenfeld's op-ed referred to Fortune 100 companies.