Jamie Dimon: ‘The notion that this country is behind is frustrating’

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of America’s largest bank JPMorgan Chase has voiced his frustration over perceptions that America is falling behind in defense technology.

“The notion that this country is behind is frustrating, but I’m very uplifted by what they’re doing,” Dimon told Axios while touring California defense startups including Impulse Space. Dimon’s comments come as JPMorgan Chase expands its Security and Resiliency Initiative, a $1.5 trillion program launched in October to support national security industries. Initially focused on the US, the effort now extends to Canada, Europe, and the U.K., with billions already committed across aerospace, defense, manufacturing, energy, and health tech.

Riding a bus from Impulse Space toward an In-N-Out Burger somewhere southeast of Redondo Beach, California, Dimon and fellow JPMorgan executives spent the drive discussing the defense-tech sector's opportunities, risks, and blind spots. Dimon said it's frustrating to hear the narrative that the U.S. is falling behind, but that he personally feels uplifted by what companies like Impulse Space are actually building.

The trip is tied to a much larger commitment. In October, JPMorgan Chase committed $1.5 trillion toward national security through its Security and Resiliency Initiative. What began as a domestic-focused push has since expanded to include Canada, Europe, and the U.K., with billions of dollars already deployed and billions more potentially still to come. Dimon traced his own interest in the space back to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which he said forced a broader rethink of weapons, tactics, and global power balances. He said conversations with retired generals about the resulting challenges were what really opened his eyes to the issue.

Axios accompanied Dimon and his team on the trip, which included a visit to Impulse Space — a space-mobility startup led by SpaceX's first employee — along with meetings with missile, drone, and aircraft makers, energy specialists, manufacturers, and data companies. The visits were part of JPMorgan's annual bus tour tradition, in which Dimon and other senior bank executives travel to meet with employees, clients, and local communities across the country. This year's route was dedicated entirely to California, beginning in Healdsburg and moving through San Francisco, Modesto, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles before wrapping up in Orange County.

Defense work was once viewed with skepticism in parts of the West Coast tech world. That's changed. Startups and newer defense contractors clustered around LAX and SFO are now aggressively competing for Pentagon budget dollars and increasingly overshadowing older, more traditional defense contractors. John China, co-leader of JPMorgan Chase's innovation economy practice, said that in three decades in Silicon Valley, he's never seen a manufacturing push of this intensity, calling the current momentum real and tangible. JPMorgan sponsored this year's NatSec100, a ranking of prominent private-capital-backed defense companies and their government contracts; a dozen companies that previously appeared on the list have since gone public. China said the firm needs to keep showing up in person, regularly, to stay connected with the people building in this space.

The initiative is focused on critical industries including aerospace and defense, manufacturing, energy, and health tech, spanning more than two dozen subcategories such as battery storage, command and control systems, critical minerals, munitions, shipbuilding, and space launch. The effort is backed by a notable roster of advisors, including former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, retired Generals Chris Cavoli and Paul Nakasone, and former House Speaker Paul Ryan. JPMorgan Chase co-president Doug Petno said the firm is putting both its people and its capital behind the effort, describing the commitment as one that needed to be substantive and backed by visible, measurable action rather than symbolic. The stakes, according to Dimon's team The broader argument driving the initiative is that if the U.S. fails to accelerate its defense-industrial base, fails to remove Chinese components from its most sensitive supply chains, and fails to balance competing priorities across the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and the Arctic, it risks losing the next major conflict