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Nelson Peltz believes he “played matchmaker” for Donald Trump and Elon Musk at a breakfast together in late spring with Peltz’ son Diesel. He said he’s friends with the Tesla billionaire, who was recently named the president elect’s cost-cutter-in-chief, and he’s looking forward to Trump’s next term
“I was a matchmaker … I don’t know that Donald would have had this sweeping victory without Elon’s help. Elon was in Pennsylvania. I thought he was going to be Dutch or something,” he told CNBC’s Delivering Alpha Investor Conference in NYC.
“Amish?” interjected the moderator?
“Yeah right, I thought he was going to be Amish. He was there almost full time. He came to New York every now and then to say hello. But other than that, he was, he was there. And I take my hat off to him. I mean, he got the bit in his teeth and he wanted it to to work. And if Donald gives him the opportunity, he will cut costs. And that’s what we need to do. We need to cut costs.”
He also talked Disney. The activist investor lost a long and costly proxy battle against the entertainment conglomerate earlier this year.
Re-litigating the fight and resuming his playbook, he describing the board as inept and corrupt. He said the stock perked up because the body under new chairman James Gorman is set to name a successor to Bob Iger. He called Gorman “a good man” who, he thinks, will announce the new chief executive next year — well ahead of the late 2026 expiration of Iger’s contract.
Peltz’ made his name amassing big holding in target companies and pushing for board seats and change. Companies created by founders thrived but “once these companies got successful — Procter and Gamble, Unilever, Disney [some of his targets], and that founder moved on, then you wound up with a company without founders and a board put there to watch the management. His first director’s gig in the 1970s paid $5k to $10k a year. “That’s an honorarium, it’s not source of income. Today, directors can be making $300k to $400k a year.”
“Now it’s getting serious. You’re on two, three boards. You’re retired. Nice retirement income for you. The first thing you don’t want to do is upset the chairman. You want to make sure he’s happy with you.
“That’s what we had at Disney. That’s what we have at a lot of these places.”
So, he was asked, why didn’t he win?
“Why because the index funds didn’t want me to win. The index funds get paid a lot of money from Disney, and they didn’t want me to win,” he said — rather anti-climatic.
It wasn’t a total loss, he bought he shares in the mid-to-low $80s and sold them at $119 after the proxy fight. The shares have bounced around since. “If the stock goes back to the $80s, you guys, I’ll be back. I promise.”
