Courtesy Jeff Greene
Real estate investor Jeff Greene has seen his fair share of elections. The 70-year-old billionaire has lived through six Democratic and six Republican presidents, and he made his first fortune shorting subprime mortgages during the 2008 financial crisis before expanding into real estate. (His holdings include apartment complexes, offices and retail properties in Los Angeles and South Florida, particularly in West Palm Beach.)
He still remembers the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, when he was six years old, and he was at one time involved in politics himself: he twice ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Florida in 2010 and for Florida governor in 2018.
A registered Democrat, Greene did not support Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. But he has a Trump connection: he lives next door to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, and was once a member of the club. Greene, who’s worth an estimated $7.9 billion, spoke to Forbes from his Palm Beach home on Wednesday, the day after the election, about his reaction to the results and why he’s optimistic about the U.S. economy under a second Trump administration.
Forbes: You live in Florida and have been investing there for a long time. What are your thoughts on the election and your reaction this morning?
Jeff Greene: Most of my political leanings since growing up in Massachusetts have been Democratic. The first election I remember was John F. Kennedy when I was a little kid. Basically the reason is, I started with absolutely nothing. I’ve lived the American dream and I realized that the government can really play a role in helping people to achieve what I’ve achieved. And I’ve always felt that talent is evenly dispersed among all people all over the world, regardless of their race or their age or their nationality. But what’s not evenly distributed is opportunity.
So I’ve always felt the Democratic Party was a little more focused than the Republican party on really providing opportunities to people, through education and healthcare and housing and the kinds of things to get everyone to the same starting line in life. And so that’s why I’ve supported them, but I’ve voted for Republicans too, and I certainly understand the ideas behind the Republican platform and the economy, which is of course, ‘get government out of the way’ and pro-growth policies. And if you have a growing economy, there will be more opportunities for everybody.
So look, both sides have good ideas, and now Donald Trump’s our president and I want to get excited about the opportunity for him to bring the country together and hopefully get into a great period of opportunity for more and more Americans.
Forbes: You live in Palm Beach near Mar-a-Lago and used to be a member there as well. How was it around there [on election night]? Did you see any people going in, what was the mood there?
Greene: Well, you don’t really see too much because there’s a lot of security since the assassination attempts. But I can tell you, when I was driving home yesterday evening, there was quite a bit of traffic because right now any car that goes in there has to be searched. And they used to just search the trucks. Now they search the engine under the car with mirrors. So it’s a very extensive search of every car. As a result, if there’s a lot of people coming in there, then they line up because they have to wait to get searched. So I get stuck in the lines, I’m just trying to get home. So it’s a bit of a problem.
Look, at the end of the day, as far as traffic goes, it’s very good news for us because Donald Trump’s moving to Washington. We’re only going to see the traffic when he’s here for the holidays, which will be mostly during the winter months. And so we’re all focused on what it’s going to do for our community and our country and where we’re going, more than the traffic.
Forbes: In terms of Florida, obviously those results came out quite early. What was your reaction to that? It was expected [the state] would go for Trump, but the size of the victory maybe was not as expected. You obviously were involved in Florida politics in the past. Were you expecting that kind of result?
Greene: You really can’t be surprised. When I first got into politics here in Florida in 2010, there were more Democrats registered than Republicans. Now there’s a million more Republicans registered than Democrats. So of course it’s pretty hard to lose as a Republican when you start with a million person advantage in registration. So that’s kind of what happened, and none of us were really surprised. I don’t think anyone really thought that Donald Trump was going to lose Florida, or that [Senator] Rick Scott was going to lose or any of these folks were going to lose.
We were a little surprised about the [state constitutional] amendments. The one on abortion and the one on marijuana legalization, they were both at 57%. They needed 60% [to pass]. So the majority of the people don’t like that six week abortion ban, and the majority of the people would like to have legal marijuana, but not 60%. [Neither amendment got enough votes to pass.]
Forbes: We’re seeing the markets react positively today. What are you expecting broadly in terms of the economic picture going into next year, and as far as a Trump administration?
Greene: My biggest worry about our economy is our deficit, our national debt. Our debt to GDP ratio is over 100% and climbing, we’re heading towards 150% right now. The interest on our national debt costs more per year than our national defense budget. You have an $800 billion cost per year. So it’s a real problem. Financial crises like this don’t happen at once. They percolate slowly and it just creeps up on you, and at one point it could creep up on us and hurt us.
I was disappointed that neither of the candidates were talking about that issue, and I understand why they wouldn’t. If you’re running for office, you don’t really want to say you’re going to increase taxes or cut programs. But the truth is, I think that we have to do a little of both. We don’t really need a tax cut from where we are today. I’m sure [Trump] is going to extend the cuts that he has, which he’ll be able to do now, but I don’t think we need any further tax cuts. We need to find ways to raise revenue and find ways to cut expenses, without hurting people who have legitimate needs in our economy.
Forbes: How do you think Trump’s plans might affect that? There’s been a lot of talk about tariffs but also a lot of talk about cutting spending.
Greene: Elon Musk said, ‘I’m going to cut $2 trillion off the budget.’ We all know that half of the $6.5 trillion budget is entitlement programs. It’s defense, interest and Social Security and Medicare. If you cut $2 trillion, it’s almost like cutting everything else in the budget. So I think it’s going to be hard to do.
But look, what you’re going to see—and this is why the markets are up—is a lot of this overregulation we’ve had go away, which would make it easier for people like new entrepreneurs to go out and build businesses and start companies. And that’s why people are reacting positively to that, because there’s no question that’s what Donald Trump and the Republican Senate will do, which is a good thing. Get the government out of the way of business, I’ve always been in favor of that.
The risk is that we have to really focus on the national debt, because one day we may just all wake up and no one will want to buy the bonds anymore. If that happens and long rates start to really go high, it would really hurt our economy in a very big way.
Forbes: In terms of real estate, what do you think is the outlook over the next year? With interest rates expected to come down a bit more, and the supply issues being resolved, what are your thoughts on real estate?
Greene: The real estate market is a local thing. The good news for us—and I’m one of the bigger property owners here in this community and I have a lot of holdings here—is there’s no question in my mind that having West Palm Beach on everyone’s television screens all over the world is only going to help our brand and our city. It’s a fantastic community anyway. It’s a great place to live, with an amazing quality of life. We have a lot of great things already happening in our community, but I think getting this global attention every time President Trump is in town and even during this transition period while he’s here lining up his cabinet and all his key people is only going to be great for our market.
As far as real estate in general, we’re overbuilt in a lot of categories now, in apartments and office space. If we have great economic growth, even if it means we can dodge the bullet that I think is heading our way from the national debt, there’ll be more demand for apartments and office space. A growing economy is a wonderful thing. I’m all in favor of a growing economy. I just hope that we’re mindful of the risks of having this extraordinary deficit spending that Republicans and Democrats have both been doing over the last few administrations.
Forbes: Did you get involved with the election at all, in terms of donations or campaigning, or were you sitting this one out?
Greene: No, not really. I know President Trump, I live very close by and I’ve known him a long time. I’ve really never met Kamala Harris or President Biden. I’ve never met them, I’ve never spoken to them, I don’t really know them. I wasn’t really involved in this election.
Look, Donald Trump’s the president. Let’s just hope everyone comes together and works together, and he works together with everyone and we get to head into the greatest time ever for our country, because Americans have been pretty down lately and we shouldn’t be. This is the greatest country in the world. Everyone in the world wants to come here—legally, illegally, any way they can get here. And I think we’re just a fantastic place and Americans should wake up. There’s so many great things in our country. When you look at the benefits of AI, life expectancy from biotech and all of the amazing things that we have in our lives, we shouldn’t be so disappointed. We should wake up in the morning, everyone should think, ‘I love being in America. I love our country. I love my life here.’ Hopefully we’ll get to that point at the end of his four years. Hopefully everyone will be really happy. That’s the goal.
Forbes: You have a hopeful outlook on the next few years.
Greene: Well, I’m an optimist. You can’t be an entrepreneur without being an optimist. I played tennis this morning. I was up 5-1 in the tiebreaker and I lost 8-6. Stuff changes in life and tennis every day. I’m ready for the next battle. And that’s what I think as Americans we have to do. We have to always be ready. I’m just hoping that we can get some of these world problems behind us that have dragged us down, these immigration issues that are dividing us.