JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon hosted an extravagant party to celebrate King Charles’ 77th birthday on Thursday in the bank’s shiny new Manhattan skyscraper.
It was an all-out birthday bash – what Brits might call a bit of a “knees-up” – complete with a huge projection of the Union Jack on the side of JPMorgan’s new $3 billion headquarters.
Though the king himself was not there, members of the British Consulate and celebrities like actor Brian Cox and former Prime Minister Tony Blair stopped by to cheer “Long live the king” – after first cheering for President Trump, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Charles celebrated his birthday on Nov. 14 after a spate of health issues including a cancer diagnosis. The palace has not specified what kind of cancer the king has.
The event in the new Lord Norman Foster-designed building featured classic British nosh like Yorkshire pudding and beef pie with Stilton cheese, in a room decked out with photos of the royal family and former President Reagan and Trump, according to The Journal.
There were also tables with sushi and nigiri sushi for those adverse to British pub grub.
Members of Parliament and British nobles wearing kilts chatted with reality TV stars like Ubah Hassan from “The Real Housewives of New York City” and Mary Holland Nader from “Love Thy Nader,” The Journal reported.
The belated birthday party might have seemed unusual for a number of reasons – not only was Charles thousands of miles away; the festivities took place in a country readying to celebrate 250 years of independence from the Brits.
But it wasn’t such an unexpected move for Dimon, who has been growing closer with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government and is friendly with French President Emmanuel Macron. He met the king during a global investment summit in the UK in 2023.
Dimon used the event to spread his goal of bringing the US and Europe closer together, warning of the dangers of a weakened trans-Atlantic alliance as he thanked the British for their help in countering Nazism.
“There’s a whiskey bar back there,” he said on a less serious note to roughly 400 guests as he took to the stage. “Thank God, mostly Scottish whiskey.”
Varun Chandra, Starmer’s special adviser on business and investment, made a speech that flopped with a string of “very cringeworthy and overused Dad jokes” about the differences between Britain and the US, an attendee said.
Guests told The Post that Chandra’s speech made passing references to how Britons pronounce “z” as “zed” and how Americans don’t really understand “football” — what is known as soccer on this side of the Atlantic.
“Nobody laughed. Everyone was just waiting for him to finish,” said an insider who was among the 400 or so onlookers.
Dimon was surrounded all night by people angling to take photographs with the exec – staying behind with a drink in hand for more than two hours after many JPMorgan execs had already left, according to The Journal.
A major history buff, Dimon nodded to JPMorgan’s British ties during his speech.
Founder J. Pierpont Morgan came from a family of English merchants, and his son, Jack Morgan, was good friends with King George VI – Charles’ grandfather.
But representatives of the British Consulate didn’t skim over the event’s blatant irony.
“We’re just about to begin the celebrations for 250 years of American independence from the British monarch, and here we stand in this temple of American freedom and prosperity to celebrate the birthday of the British monarch,” Chandra said during his speech.
Back in the 1600s, King Charles II ousted the Dutch from New Amsterdam and gave the territory to his brother, the Duke of York – renaming it New York in his honor.
JPMorgan did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
