Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, pushed away The Daily Caller’s microphone when he was approached with a question regarding President Obama saying, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
Blankfein, who donates mostly to Democrats, was participating in a panel discussion moderated by David Rubenstein, the co-founder of the Carlyle Group and president of the Economic Club of Washington. As of March 2012, Rubenstein’s net worth is reportedly $2.8 billion.
TheDC attempted to ask Blankfein about Obama’s comments after the event.
“No, I just answered that, give me a minute,” Blankfein said, after covering and pushing away TheDC’s microphone on Wednesday.
He then exited the room and would not take questions from the press.
Among the Obama campaign’s donations from company PACs and their employees in the 2008 election, Goldman Sachs ranked second highest.
Forbes Magazine ranked Blankfein number 43 on its list of most powerful people, earning $18,600,000 annually as of November 2011. The company has since cut his pay to $12 million per year.
According to the New York Times, Blankfein was paid $68 million by Goldman Sachs in 2007.
In a press release, the Economic Club of Washington said the event would “focus on global economic issues including the continuing financial crisis in Europe, the state of job creation in the United States, and the outlook for capital markets in this election year.”
In his remarks, Blankfein did not address Obama’s comments about business owners but discussed the federal government’s handling of the current fiscal situation in the U.S.
“This is really a march of folly to have things go between two extremes,” he said. “First, because nothing will get done but secondly if one side wins as one side will win, you don’t accomplish the certainty because immediately after one side wins and then takes all the other side will be plotting and planning to reverse it two years later — much has happened in the beginning part of this current term and has happened after the House of Representatives won it’s election.”
“Any kind of stability in our system could only be achieved if everybody throws in at least a little so that it’s stable and it’s that stability that helps things to go forward.”
Blankfein visited the White House on Wednesday and met with White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew.
