Trump’s biggest champion in finance, Schwarzman, remains unfazed. He runs the world’s largest overseer of alternative assets.

Schwarzman noted in his book last year that he has talked to U.S. presidents for decades, and in 2015, he said he has known Trump for about 40 years. The Blackstone chief -- whose longtime advocacy for doing more business in China contrasts with Trump’s current posture -- has delivered messages from Chinese President Xi Jinping to Trump and set up meetings between them, including one at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

Still, Schwarzman turned down Trump’s invitation to join his administration. He agreed to Trump’s request that he set up a team of executives to “tell me the truth.” He’s since attended meetings and events with Trump, including flying with him on Air Force One to Florida, a few hours after Schwarzman chaired a CEO forum in the White House State Dining Room.

Biden Backers
The Trump years have been good to Blackstone. Its share price has more than doubled since the 2016 election, largely after tax cuts encouraged the publicly traded partnership to convert to a corporation. Schwarzman cut his first check to the campaign in December 2017, one week before Trump signed the tax bill into law.

“As someone who has sought to be supportive of the president in various matters, it’s not surprising that Steve has contributed to his campaign,” Blackstone spokesperson Christine Anderson said in a statement. “However, any insinuation that Steve’s financial support is a direct result of the tax reform bill -- which raised the personal tax rates of every senior Blackstone executive given the near-elimination of the SALT deduction -- is patently false.”

Cohn, Powell and representatives for the billionaires either couldn’t be reached or declined to comment. Trump’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for America First Action, billed as Trump’s “official” super PAC, declined to comment.

Meanwhile, many of Schwarzman’s deputies are backing Biden. When Biden recently teased a proposal to fund care for children and the elderly by extracting billions from wealthy Americans, it was at a fundraiser hosted by Blackstone Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Gray.

Any restraint in giving to Trump doesn’t necessarily indicate a desire for a Biden presidency, said Don Steinbrugge, who runs New York-based Agecroft Partners, which helps hedge funds raise money from investors.

“He has more support than what most people would publicly communicate,” Steinbrugge said. “Wall Street supports the Republican Party in general, and I think if they vote Republican they are doing so more to support the party than the particular individual that’s representing the party.”

--With assistance from Demetrios Pogkas, Sridhar Natarajan, Bill Allison and Dan Reichl.