Billionaire Trump backer Bill Ackman issues dire warning over tariffs

Hedge fund honcho Bill Ackman has joined a growing list of President Donald Trump's billionaire backers calling for the White House to slam the brakes on tariffs.

As the Trump administration's reciprocal tariffs went into effect Wednesday, triggering retaliatory reactions from China and the European Union, Ackman took to social media, asking Trump to put a 90-day pause on tariffs, arguing the president can "accomplish his objectives without destroying small businesses in the short term."

In the lengthy post on X, Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, issued a dire warning of what could happen if the tariffs aren't halted immediately.

"If the president doesn't pause the effect of the tariffs soon, many small businesses will go bankrupt," Ackman wrote. "Medium-sized businesses will be next."

Ackman is joining other billionaires, including some like him who supported Trump's campaign for reelection, in turning a cold shoulder to the escalating tariff war. Trump claims the tariffs are necessary for leveling the playing field for the United States importers, saying, "foreign trade and economic practices have created a national emergency."

Other billionaire moguls -- including investor and philanthropist Stanley Druckenmiller, Citdel owner Kenneth Griffin and even Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a senior adviser to the president -- have spoken out against Trump's tariffs after supporting the president's re-election campaign.

Speaking at an event in Miami on Monday night, Griffin called Trump's tariffs a "huge policy mistake," according to The Wall Street Journal. In a rare social media post on Sunday, Druckenmiller wrote, "I do not support tariffs exceeding 10%."

Musk has publicly blasted Trump's senior trade adviser Peter Navarro, one of the architects of Trump's tariff policy, calling him "truly a moron" and "dumber than a sack of bricks" after Navaro described him as a "car assembler." In a live stream speech to Italy's League Congress Conference in Florence, Italy, on Saturday, Musk expressed hope for the U.S. and Europe to create "a very close, stronger partnership" and reach a "zero-tariff" policy soon.

A 10% tariff on all U.S. trading partners went into effect on Saturday. Additional reciprocal tariffs against 60 countries that place duties on U.S. imports went into effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Some countries have retaliated by imposing tariffs on American goods. Trump increased the tariffs on China to 104% and threatened an additional 50% if China didn't back down from imposing a 34% tariff on U.S. goods. China responded Wednesday by jacking up tariffs on U.S. products to 84%.

The European Union also voted Wednesday to impose a retaliatory 25% tariffs on certain U.S. goods.

Ackman spoke out against tariffs, saying he is "receiving an increasing number of emails and texts from small business people I do business or have invested in, expressing fear that they will not be able to pass on their increased costs to their customers and will suffer severely negative consequences."

In his post Wednesday, Ackman shared an email from the founder of a cold brew coffee business he said he received before China's announced retaliatory tariffs. The cold brew coffee founder said his cost for glass bottles sourced from China will go up 50%, while chai sourced from India will increase by 26% and coffee imported from Ethiopia, Peru and Canada will climb by 10%.

"Will my clients tolerate a near doubling of their contract costs overnight, or will they expect me to absorb the increases my vendors are already threatening?" the business owner wrote in the email to Ackman. "If clients resist price hikes and my employees demand higher wages to offset their rising cost of living, we end up in a lose-lose scenario -- no spending and no jobs."

Ackman ended his post by writing, "May cooler heads prevail."