Elon Musk and Jamie Dimon are making peace

The two business titans have been feuding since a 2016 fallout. Musk’s companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, have spurned JPMorgan Chase bankers, and the nation’s largest bank hasn’t wooed his business empire.

They have been moving toward a fresh start since a March detente, when Musk attended an inaugural JPMorgan technology conference and talked on stage with Dimon before a crowd that included Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella and Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI. Afterward, the door appeared open for JPMorgan and Musk’s empire to find a way to work together in the future, people familiar with the relationship said.

There remains a significant roadblock. JPMorgan and Tesla are still in a legal battle that started three years ago over $162 million that JPMorgan says Tesla should pay for a series of trades.

But the progress is notable. Just over a year ago, it seemed unlikely JPMorgan and Musk would ever find a way to work together.

“In the case of JPMorgan, Tesla, um, has a very negative relationship with JPMorgan,” Musk testified in a court case in January 2023. “JPMorgan hates Tesla, in a nutshell.”

Musk is the kind of client JPMorgan and Dimon typically covet. One of the world’s richest people, he is a potential client for wealth-management advice and runs a collection of companies that could use banking, fundraising and dealmaking services. 

He brings challenges—loans other banks made for his Twitter acquisition have lost significant value—but most bankers are eager to stay on his good side for fees from his transactions and potential initial public offerings, such as his rocket company, SpaceX.

In May, JPMorgan hired Eric Gray, a Los Angeles-based wealth manager to the ultrawealthy. Musk has been one of his clients, according to people familiar with their relationship.

For Musk’s empire, he could gain access to the bank with the deepest pockets in America, plus a wider network of advisers and services.

Those mutual interests are what has made the feud so unusual on Wall Street and why a change of heart could open the door to lucrative solutions for both sides.

JPMorgan was never Tesla’s most important adviser—that role has been held by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley—but the carmaker did use some banking services. The relationship started fraying around 2016.

Musk wanted JPMorgan, one of the country’s biggest auto lenders, to underwrite leases for Tesla’s electric vehicles. Bank executives balked, unsure how to value the life of the car batteries, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Musk was infuriated by the decision, and called the bank’s then-head of consumer banking, screaming and threatening to pull Tesla’s business, people familiar with the matter said. Musk’s message ended with “F— you,” one of the people said.

Dimon was angry. He called Musk and told him that JPMorgan wouldn’t be bullied, the people said.

In the ensuing years, Musk has worked closely with many of the bank’s competitors, and his empire has expanded to six companies. Goldman has been paid nearly $90 million in fees from Tesla and SpaceX since 2010, according to Dealogic. JPMorgan worked on the other side of Musk, representing Twitter when Musk acquired the company personally.

“JPMorgan used to have all of Tesla’s commercial banking business,” Musk testified last year in an unrelated lawsuit. “But when I asked Jamie Dimon at one point for support with a Tesla automotive leasing line, he declined to support Tesla…So I withdrew all commercial banking business from JPMorgan, which, to say the least, made JPMorgan hate Tesla and me very much.”

The animosity became public in late 2021, when JPMorgan took the unusual step of suing Tesla and Musk over $162 million. The bank said Tesla owed the money for a trade JPMorgan helped arrange in 2014. Tesla countersued, saying JPMorgan was mad in part because it didn’t get any of Musk’s business.

“If JPM doesn’t withdraw their lawsuit, I will give them a one-star review on Yelp,” Musk told the Journal at the time.

The lawsuits are ongoing, and it is unclear if an improving Dimon-Musk relationship would change that.

There had been signs of a thaw in the past year.

In November, Dimon was asked his thoughts about Musk at the New York Times’s DealBook conference. “He’s obviously a brilliant human being and making unbelievable contributions to mankind. But he, you know, comes with pluses and minuses,” Dimon responded.

In January, Musk complimented Dimon for making positive comments about some of Donald Trump’s positions. “Jamie Dimon says it well,” Musk tweeted.

In March, JPMorgan held a technology summit at a resort in Big Sky, Mont. JPMorgan and other banks commonly host conferences and group gatherings, but this was the bank’s first version of a superelite tech-focused gathering. As a big draw, they landed an unlikely speaker: Musk.

For more than an hour, Dimon and Musk spoke about an array of topics, from Israel to artificial intelligence and U.S. politics. The two men seemed to have a good rapport on stage, with Musk often being deferential to Dimon’s views, according to people familiar with the event.

Musk also had his young son, X, with him at the event, one of the people said. The event was organized by JPMorgan’s head of technology investment banking, Madhu Namburi, and had celebrities in attendance including Tom Brady, Serena Williams, Katy Perry and John Legend.

Musk also visited Dimon’s suite at the resort for what was meant to be a short conversation. It lasted for more than an hour.

Following the event, Dimon decided the bank could try to resume doing business with Musk, the people said.

Justin Baer contributed to this article.