Wall Street starts to speak out against Trump's tariffs

Investors Stan Druckenmiller, Bill Ackman are among those raising concerns about the president's global levies

- Gregory Zuckerman & Annamaria Andriotis

For weeks, as the contours of President Trump's sweeping tariff plans came in and out of focus, Wall Street's big names kept any concerns they had to themselves.

Now, after a two-day market meltdown last week that erased trillions of dollars in value from U.S. stocks, some are speaking out, including those who have been vocal supporters of Trump.

Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge-fund manager behind Pershing Square, called for a 90-day pause in the tariffs to negotiate with other countries, warning that the alternative was "a self-induced, economic nuclear winter."

"We are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital," Ackman wrote in a social-media post on X.

U.S. stocks tumbled shortly after the opening bell on Monday, while shares in Asia and Europe plunged.

Trump and his officials defended the plan over the weekend and said the country would benefit in the end, deflecting concerns about a recession.

"What's going to happen to the markets, I can't tell you," Trump said late Sunday. "I don't want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something."

On Monday morning, Trump's trade adviser, Peter Navarro, dismissed worries about a recession and said the stock market would recover.

But there was a growing chorus from big names on Wall Street and politics, including those who back tariffs in theory, that the current plan is misguided and will cause irreparable damage. Even Elon Musk has been critical, calling for a free-trade agreement between the U.S. and Europe while criticizing Navarro on X, slamming his "ego/brains."