JPMorgan CEO 'Regrets' Joke Company Would Last Longer Than China's Communist Party

JPMorgan Chase's CEO is apologizing after attempting to poke fun at the Chinese Communist Party last week.

Jamie Dimon had been speaking at an event at Boston College where he brought up an anecdote from a Hong Kong trip where he learned that the CCP and JPMorgan are both celebrating their 100th anniversary. He then said, "I'd make you a bet we last longer." He then said that he couldn't say that in China, which has been ruling Hong Kong since 1997.

"They probably are listening anyway," Dimon added.

Now, he's taking back the quips. He has released a statement apologizing for the remarks, saying that he "truly regrets" making them.

"It's never right to joke about or denigrate any group of people, whether it's a country, its leadership, or any part of a society and culture," Dimon said.

Many American banks, including JPMorgan, have operations in China. According to the Associated Press, these banks' "ability to do business there and how successful they are is often at the whim of the Chinese government." While a spokesperson said that JPMorgan will continue operations in the country, the joke made by Dimon most likely put their relationship in doubt.

The bank itself has made a statement on the matter, saying that it "acknowledges that he should never speak lightly or disrespectfully about another country or its leadership."

While speaking at Boston College, he also compared the United States and China in regard to sociopolitical statuses. "We have the gifts of our founding fathers: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise, freedom of human capital, immigration," he explained.

"If you opened up the doors of America, a billion people would come here," he explained. "If you open the doors to China, how many people do you think will go there?"

For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below:

Dimon traveled to Hong Kong just last week as part of a tour of JPMorgan's operation in Asia, his first trip there since the pandemic. Dimon got a special Hong Kong government waiver to COVID-19 quarantine protocols as part of his trip.

Dimon is known for speaking his mind, with few filters in between. Newsweek previously reported that he got frank talking with President Joe Biden in October about a potential debt fallout, saying that "American competence, not American incompetence" will avoid such a disaster.

"We should never even get this close," Dimon said. "We don't need to have this kind of brinkmanship every couple of years."