Jamie Dimon warns Texas to stop pushing anti-business laws over guns, oil

financialpost.com:

Jamie Dimon said Texas risks undermining its business-friendly reputation with laws designed to punish Wall Street banks for policies that limit work with the gun and fossil fuel industries.

“Texas is a wonderful, welcoming place” for business, the longtime JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive said Wednesday in an interview in Frisco, Tex. “The government’s done a magnificent job and that’s why you have the growth, why unemployment is so low, why people are moving companies and jobs here.”

“I think it’s a mistake to damage it even a little way,” said Dimon, who runs the nation’s largest bank.

Texas Republicans picked a fight with Wall Street over investment policies on firearms and oil in 2021, passing two laws that restricted public contracts with financial firms that “boycott” the fossil fuel sector or “discriminate” against gunmakers. The laws have upended bond deals and led to multiple probes into corporate policies, the latest of which was launched by Attorney General Ken Paxton last month to review 10 financial companies, including JPMorgan.

“We don’t discriminate or boycott anybody, neither for political affiliation nor for anything else,” Dimon said, marking his most direct public comments on the issue. “We do make risk, legal, credit and reputational decisions, which is our legal right — and my obligation as chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase.”

Texas officials like to tout the state’s rapid economic and population growth, which they say is a testament to its pro-business policies. Just last month, Governor Greg Abbott described his state as having “the best business climate and strongest workforce in the nation.”

The bank isn’t pulling back on Texas. On Wednesday, JPMorgan announced that Chase intends to hire