mulled running for president a number of years ago but ultimately decided against it. More recently, he’s taken to saying he would like to be “anointed president.” Yet when such musings stoke too much speculation, he gets frustrated. “It’s more annoying than not,” Dimon recently told Bloomberg Television. “It’s a little flattering. I just want to help our government do the right stuff. I think there are a lot of things to do to make America far better off.”

Privately, he’s added that if he knew how dysfunctional US politics would get, perhaps he would’ve decided differently years ago and launched a political career. In fact, he once publicly boasted—briefly—that he could beat Trump, telling an audience in 2018 that “I’m as tough as he is, I’m smarter than he is.”

Within a few hours Dimon realized how much trouble the remark would create. “I should not have said it,” he said. “Proves I wouldn’t make a good politician.”