CHARLOTTE, NC (AP) – A growing number of Wall Street banks and businesses have cut ties with President Donald Trump’s campaign and financial weapon, as well as the broader Republican Party, following riots and uprisings last week at the US capital.
The financial technology company Stripe has stopped paying for the Trump campaign, according to someone familiar with the matter who requested anonymity because the decision was not made public.
The move will cut off Trump’s fundraising arm from a steady stream of small-dollar donations that are often solicited via email and text messages. Stripe’s decision was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. In the days after the election, Trump’s campaign raised tens of millions of dollars and promised to use the money to fight the outcome of the election. It appears the money went largely into Trump’s broader political committee.
American Express and JPMorgan Chase have said they will no longer donate to candidates who supported last week’s uprising or did not vote to confirm President Joe Biden’s election in the Electoral College. Goldman Sachs is also withholding political donations, a source close to the firm said, who is not authorized to speak in public.
“The efforts of some members of Congress last week to undermine the presidential election results and disrupt the peaceful transition of power are not in line with our (values),” American Express CEO Steve Squeri said in an email to employees .
Citigroup confirmed on Sunday that it would suspend all federal political donations for the first three months of the year.
Citi Wolff, head of Citi’s global government affairs, said in a memorandum to employees on Friday: “We want you to be assured that we will not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law.”
Several technology companies have cracked down on President Trump, the GOP and other forums that were seen as possibilities for violent extremism and insurgency. Twitter suspended Trump from his platform last week, as did Facebook. The social media company Parler was banned from Apple’s App Store as well as Google’s Play Store, and Amazon cut Parler off from its Amazon Web Services platform.
Shopify, an e-commerce platform for merchants to sell goods, also shut down the Trump campaign’s trading website.