Ray Dalio says to understand Trump’s 2nd administration, you should study how far-right governments in the 1930s worked

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio said Donald Trump’s “America First” approach, combined with a major “government renovation,” is an approach tried before by hard-right nations in the 1930s.

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio said studying hard-right countries from the 1930s can shed light on how President-Elect Donald Trump would reshape the US government under the banner of efficiency.

Dalio, who often publishes personal remarks on the global economy, wrote a LinkedIn commentary on Wednesday with his predictions for a second Trump administration.

“It is now clear that Donald Trump and those he is choosing will reform government and the country like a corporate raider engaging in a hostile takeover of an inefficient company,” wrote Dalio, who founded the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates.

The billionaire said Trump’s push for a remade government includes “huge reforms” that would replace key staff, slash costs, and introduce new technologies.

Among those recent efforts, Trump has announced Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as the heads of a new Department of Government Efficiency. They’ve so far signaled plans to reduce head count and eliminate certain federal agencies.

“Think of Gordon Gekko and the perspective he conveyed in his ‘greed is good’ speech,” Dalio wrote of Trump’s approach, referring to Michael Douglas’ character from “Wall Street,” the 1987 film. “While recognizing that this is coming from the president of the United States, who is going to take that approach to the central government and the entire country.”

“As mentioned, the most recent analogous historical cases were the hard-rightist states in the 1930s,” Dalio added.

Dalio wrote that he isn’t saying Trump’s administration would be fascist or that Trump would behave like fascist leaders. But he said a “government renovation” with an “America First” foreign policy were approaches tried before by those governments.

“What I am saying is that, in order to understand those who are now taking control with nationalistic, protectionist, top-down, government-led economic and social policies, and who have little tolerance for internal opposition and are embroiled in international great powers conflicts, it is worth understanding how those states with analogous policies in the 1930s behaved,” Dalio wrote.

Dalio: Trump fielding ‘win-at-all-cost loyalists’

The billionaire described Trump as surrounding himself with “win-at-all-cost loyalists,” including Musk, Ramaswamy, Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio, and potential advisors such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon.

In the weeks since winning the election, Trump has been seen often with Elon Musk, including when they attended a SpaceX launch together. 

Their mission, Dalio wrote, is to “create maximum economic strength and fight foreign enemies.”

“Once these people are in place, the same appointment approach will likely be used to purge the government of those accused of being part of the ‘deep state,’ who are not aligned with and loyal to the mission,” Dalio wrote.

Dalio has long been vocal about his philosophy that the world cycles through multigenerational periods where one power dictates the tenor of global society, economy, and politics.

The billionaire has often said that a post-World War II order led by Washington is ebbing.

He wrote on Wednesday that Trump’s “America First” foreign policy pushes the world toward a situation where nations are split between the US and China in a “law-of-the-jungle” style.

Ray Dalio often publishes philosophical remarks on the global economy and geopolitics.

“In other words, we are now coming to the end of an era led by the United States, in which countries tried to work out together how to be with each other through multinational organizations with guiding principles and rules,” Dalio wrote.

Dalio has regularly warned that he believes internal strife within the US could escalate into a civil war, estimating in May that the risk of such a conflict was as high as 40%.

As for Trump, the president-elect has already announced the majority of his Cabinet and staff nominations, including Fox News host Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary and New York Rep. Elise Stefanik for the US representative to the United Nations.

The US Senate, which now has a Republican majority, still has to confirm the Cabinet picks.

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from B-17 outside regular business hours.