Regulatory reform. Why were you interested in that role . You know, i honestly am sort of surprised so much is being made of my being named to that. I dont think it really changes what ive been doing. You know, ive known donald for years. Hes an extremely bright guy. I backed him for the presidency. And, i mean, its almost like talking about i know theres talks about conflicts and im sure that youre going to talk about that and ill just say this, that its almost as ridiculous as saying, you know, if that donald shouldnt talk to a jamie dimon about Bank Regulation because theyre ceos of a bank. I do own companies in every area, but as far as im concerned i dont have any specific duties. What im going to be doing is basically talking to donald as ive talked before and i do think its important, extremely important, for this country that theres absurd Regulatory Environment is toned somewhat. Im not against regulations at all. I sort of believe that you need a rule of law. But its become literally absurd in many areas. And its sort of Like Companies that ive been involved in all my life, you know. Over the last is 30, 40 years and pretty successfully cleaning up companies. There are Good Companies, good ceos as there are good regulators. There are some that are completely absurd and Companies Just as in the government. And, you know, frankly you almost get enraged by some of the stuff. What exactly will you be doing . How do you anticipate this role playing out for you . And what specific regulations will you target . Mr. Trump himself has pledged to wipe out a number of regulations. Now youre the guy in charge of suggesting which ones specifically. Which ones will they be . I basically talked to donald before about it. A lot of what i could consider to be top ceos are talking about what i think hampers our economy greatly. If you look at the epa, which, you know, ive talked about quite a bit, there is nothing more absurd, and ive talked about this before, than this regulation concerning the obligated party being refineries. They say, well they come up and i think take direction at the epa some 25yearold guys about the environment and there is nothing wrong with saying we want to get cleaner air. But there is something very wrong in our economy, and i think were going to pay a big price for it if you dont have healthy refineries. How quickly do you expect a roll back of some of the epa regulations given the fact that you were instrumental in the choice of mr. Pruitt to lead that agency . Yeah, and i believe that in the epa concerning regulations relative to refineries, you really need to roll back almost yesterday. You have to have healthy refineries and it almost is antithetical. There are refineries on the brink of bankruptcy today and, as you probably know, a slight change a slight change in the amount of gasoline that could be produced especially on the east coast is going to possibly spike gasoline prices. I think, you know, this is sort of like what happened in 08. There were other smart guys warning about the abuse of mortgagebacked securities, and its almost the same thing. It sort of grows on you. Everybody sort of knows, yeah, its crazy, but nobody does anything about it until its too late. And it if you look at the model that you have, at the epa, its really insane because to go and say that its almost laughable. You go and say refineries should be obligated to ensure that a certain amount of ethanol is blend blended, the reason is nobody will buy blended gasoline from refineries. You can sell some. So how can you be obligated to go and do something and blend something when the gas stations profit immensely from not buying blended gasoline because of the crazy regulations that they have. The other big regulation people have been talking about and weve sort of seen the way that the banks have traded since mr. Trump was elected president is dodd frank. What does dodd frank look like under a special adviser icahn . Yeah, well, look, as far as dodd frank is concerned let me tell you something. I talked to donald. I will say that donald is extremely intelligence guy and hes his own man. I will continue to talk to him and the reason that i think its good that i have a title like this is ive been getting questions almost every day or what role am i taking . I hear you talked to donald. Are you talking to him . Im an adviser in this area to him. And i intend to spend a lot of time on trying to clean up this major problem in our economy. Its really as simple as that. Do you think there are too many regulations on the banks . Yeah, there is too much regulation on the banks. And its almost as ridiculous. You shouldnt be allowed to talk to them because theyre the ceos of the bank. Thats the problem for the last eight years. The advice is coming and i dont mean to demean these people but from 25yearold kids who have this outside say in what is going on. The amazing thing a lot of these agencies is the people at the top are not experts in those areas. And i want to get back to one point. In our Economy Today you must have and not just with refineries by the way, donald has said many times hes very he believes its important that you must have investments and we dont get investments because of crazy regulations. Its so insane to have it traded. They trade in unregulated black pool market where speculators are making a fortune, where they are at the expense of refineries and they say the model isnt working and it does no good for anyone it doesnt do good for the government. It doesnt do good even for clean air. In fact, it hurts clean air because refineries, a lot of them dont have the capital to invest in updating their own refineries. This thing should be dealt with immediately. It should be, first of all, trading with third parties and it was never in the law. For some reason the epa and great wisdom decided to let third parties speculate, that should be done away immediately and then we should move on into doing more of that regulation. But they should do away with the trading. Had he shouldnt allow third parties to buy in a black pool where theres no transparency. You can go and on and on. You have that all over. Now youre going to say, well, carl icahn owns companies. I own companies in all areas. Thats like saying i cleaned up, say texaco, i did tobacco, i did forest labs. Shell has made hundreds of billions of dollars on this. None complain about the fact carl icahn helped to clean them up. Ive never heard one shareholder say weve made a lot of money, carl, but we dont like the fact you owned the stock. Im in these companies but i dont init tend to take its almost like saying you shouldnt listen to jamie dimon or Brian Monaghan about banking regulations because they have options on the bank. Its sort of a crazy issue. I preempt ed i figured youd bring it up and i just want to preempt it. You referenced it right off the beginning part of our interview, the conflict of interest question. Its been brought up several times. I know you, i knew you were bring it up so i preempted it. Ill take that as a compliment. I mean, some would say, though, should the guy who owns a cvr energy, a refiner, be helping shape an issue that directly affects the refining industry. Discussing regulations at the bank Bank Regulations. Hes also the ceo of an organization. I am not i can understand saying this in owning these if i were making policy. If i were there as is true of cabinet members that are really making policy. Youre helping pick some of the people who are forming the policy. I give my opinion on that. Youre never going to be right all the time. I pride myself. A great deal of good by coming in and cleaning up mt. Sinai. Anything wrong with me saying this guy is the right guy for the job at this time and it doesnt mean donald is going to take my advice. Im not the guy saying, well, he has the job. Missing a major point. Theres a problem in this country because we dont have investments. The market is good now, but i think part of that is because you have very low Interest Rates over the years, but we cant compete in this country and we cant really give good jobs to the middle class because corporations perceive themselves as war with the government. It may sound corny but i came from lower middle class in queens. Im a workaholic so i dont spend the money too much but basically and i know it sounds corny. Give Something Back here and i think i helped to clean up a lot of companies. I think it did a lot of good, enhanced a lot of value and production difficulty. Productivity. I think i can do a lot of good in my mind to keep rallying against this overregulation that we have because if you it continue to have this continue to have these 25yearold kids telling businesses how to be run, youre not going to get businesses themselves to invest. I couldnt help notice speaking of regulation and how the markets have been reacting. A number of etf Company Shares were down today or wisdom tree, reports that youve been instrumental and interviewing people to be the s. E. C. Chair. You you have argued vociferously on this network about liquidity issues you believe exist in the way etfs trade. Im just wondering if you think that etfs need stronger regulation or not. Dont confuse the s. E. C. , as far as im concerned, with etfs going down. They go down with the market and up with the market. I think youve hit on another point that progresses from regulation. Its dangerous to have all this money dammed up in the e ittfs. Delivering alpha. With larry fink, who i respect but disagree with on hes. Very positive about donald winning. Over the next four years donald will be successful. Hes a smart guy. The danger is that you have all this money pouring in from america into etfs and etfs are sort of almost blind buying. If youre buying these stocks and you really dont know what you own, youre prone to these periods of time there could be a crisis and there could be a problem. What can of person are you looking for . I would like to see at the s. E. C. , and i think this is very important and ive said this for years and years and years, there should be more accountability in Corporate America. If you look at what happens in Many Companies, and ive said it many times, its not a surprise that you build up a wall against accountability. And i dont think anybody very few will argue with me, you have many, many, many good ceos and Good Companies but you have many too many ceos should be, just like you would be removed. Youre doing very well there. What im saying to you is you really should have more accountability and get somebody who is a chairman. That will stimulate the buying of stocks. Its like in any business, look at private businesses. Unless theres nepotism, productivity, its up questionable, so the reason for that is that there was accountability. The family gets together and depp sid decides to remove the ceo and get another one. Theres no big fight. Theres no rules and the federal government should get more involved in accountability. Obviously i have an opinion. And again, almost ridiculous. It shouldnt because i own stocks. On that note, today in the usa today, since youre bringing it up, a securities lawyer was quoted saying the following. I would like your reaction to it. Quote, it is very disconcerting and troubling to people who take Investor Protection issues seriously, talking about your new job. Its a little like asking the fox to guard the hen house. Does that come from a securities lawyer . It did. I dont understand it. How is that the fox against the hens . Thats what hes alluding to. I dont understand the savings because i just look at my record and you go from time warner to r reynolds tobacco just to name a you few and there are 30 of them where we made hundreds of millions for shale. My being involved in asking for more accountability or thinking this country should have it. Thinking it will hurt, i dont understand the criticism maybe you can. It centers around the s. E. C. In particular. You as a big investor would have a role in picking the person who shapes the policy that could benefit wall street. Donald is a very strong personality and he has other advisers so im certainly not going to im not in a position which i think youre allude to go that i could go in and say, hey, this is the guy thats going to run the s. E. C. And its not going to happen that way. I talk to donald and theres nothing wrong with talk iing to him and im surprised that were getting into this kind of a discussion. Being that said, i do believe, and ive said this publicly, its nothing to do with my appointment, if it is an appointment its almost doing the same thing i do now, talk to donald from time to time. But i would tell you ive always said that if you really want this country to be more productive and bring about more jobs, you have to have better accountability in Corporate America and the reason i make so much money over the years and, look, i think because of my record im not trying to boast, but if i looked back as my record and since 68, i believe annualized 28 return. Some years i made 500 , some years i lost, but basically i am very proud of that. The unique values that were hidden and one of the values that in a lot of the companies, not all of them but a lot of them, i see it if you only get rid of the management, get management to get off the golf course, youre going to make this company a lot better. And that means more jobs. There should be some type of regulation and i know this will surprise you because i want to make it clear. There are companies with very strong Balance Sheets and plenty of cash or ability to buy back stock and thats fun. A lot of Companies Borrow money or have too much debt on the Balance Sheet and yet use that money to buy back stocks instead of investing in their own companies. And that should be controlled because that is one of the reasons im talking about, look, donald wants to get more jobs in this country. Thats a simple given. You you have to invest and in the brick and mortar stuff, too. Everybody is going to go and text each other or, you know, and, therefore, if you want that to happen, in Many Companies you must have more dedicated ceos or better ceos and, also, boards should be held accountable. Boards are the holy cow. You go in and you the company can be doing terrible. Look, well fire the ceo and it will be wonderful. The board nems are getting 300,000 or 400 a year. You just used the word controlled when talking about Companies Taking money and buying back stock rather than reinvesting it in the business. Are you suggesting that you think there needs to be some kind of regulation against companies from buying back too much of their stock instead of investing in the business . Im not saying that, but there would be ways, and im not going to go into it where you could incentivize a company to invest in their own businesses rather than buy back stock. I mean, and there are ways to do it, and im not going to go into the details. Ive thought about this a long time, that if you want to see our country prosper, we must have investment and the only way were going to have investment you cant depend on the government to go in and, again, i am the opposite of socialism, obviously, so you dont want Big Government coming in and saying heres money, go do this and do that, as much as the amounts actually, ironically Hillary Clinton said it, that you have to unleash this great amount of capital held in the companies to invest, but then in the next sentence that speech she gave, which is completely right, you have to do, she says we must regulate them and tax them so why are they going to invest . That was the problem with the Hillary Clinton message. So i am saying to get them to invest, to get companies to invest, to build this brick and mortar which will create jobs it what were doing in this country is the opposite. Weve been scaring business. Weve been overregulating them. And so you take an investment banker who obviously theres nothing wrong with this. Everybody is accessible. The competitive and work they want to prosper, so the Investment Bankers go to the ceo of companies and say, look, instead of investing in capital, why dont up just buy back your stock, and in three years youll be out of here and make 50 million. Nobody will criticize you. Instead of building a new factory or new machinery which will actually help the productivity which we need so badly in this country, instead of that, just buy back stock. And that advice is listened to because the ceo perhaps rightly so says, hey look, if i build another factory, i have these 25yearold guys coming in and telling me how to run my company and regulate me some more. If i buy stock, the stock will go up, ill invest, my option make 50 million or play golf the rest of my life. And that is what happens in Corporate America and i am telling you and i think donald listens to me to some extent because ive lived it for 30 years and work like hell at everything and i understand it. And, you know, you can take these facts im talking about, and donald is very good at this and i think im good at it, and dedeuce simple conclusions from the facts. The simple conclusion, were overregulated. I go back to my quintessential example sure. Of what you have to do with the epa, were overregulated. Thats one of the things standing in the way of investment. Another thing standing in the way of investment is that we dont hold our management boards accountable enough and inmade the money because ive held them accountable. Ive been able to do it. Very few people and im not proud im not patting myself on the back for this but very few people have the power to do what i do. You know, having the money and the capability to go in and say to the ceo, it may take me four years or five years, thats why hedge funds have difficulty being activists. It takes years to get them to do what you want. You nope in the back of your mind, youre looking at a company, and im good at analyzing them over the years and you say look, sooner or later well unkofrp the value of these companies and thats what i do. Shouldnt have to be just me doing it. We should be able to do that through in other words, the government protects these guys. The government should not be protecting these ceos that are not doing their job. I want to make it clear again,