Immelt to Obama: Strike a Business-Friendly Tone

In a week dominated by business criticism of President Obama and the passage of financial reform, the CEO of one of the nation’s largest companies, General Electric, has some gentler advice for the president: Strike a conciliatory tone with business.

Now that the contentious issues of health care reform and financial reform are in place, Immelt told CNN in an interview released late Thursday afternoon that the president needs to be laser-focused on creating new jobs at both big and small companies. And that means a less contentious tone than the one struck by the White House in recent months, and by business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which issued a stinging open letter this week criticizing the administration and Congress and held a meeting dominated by harsh words directed at Obama and his policies.

“I think it's that we all now have to create the tone—both business and government—that says, ‘I feel comfortable investing.’ Small businesses and big businesses alike. And that's the challenge. That's what we both have to do,” Immelt said. “The president's first priorities have been to take on two of the hardest issues going. And to take those on, you create contentious relationships. I think now we have to turn. Now this has to be turned toward a singular, laser-like focus on economic growth and job creation.”

Immelt pointed out that such a tone has to apply across the board to both small and big businesses, since small businesses are often suppliers to giant ventures like his own. Immelt said some 100,000 small businesses are involved in some way in the supply chain for his company.

Immelt’s comments were released on the eve of the announcement that GE’s profits have soared in the past quarter. The company announced Friday that its profits were up 16 percent in the second quarter.

"Equipment orders increased 17 percent, including 20 percent growth in the energy infrastructure segment and 14 percent at technology infrastructure. Oil and gas and health care orders were particular bright spots," Immelt said of his firm’s earnings.

Immelt and a partnership of four venture capital companies this week issued a challenge that’s right in Obama’s wheelhouse. GE, Emerald Technology Partners, Foundation Capital, Rockport Capital, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers earlier this week set up a $200 million challenge to fund companies with great ideas for energy efficiency through smart-grid technology.

All of those companies, including GE, already invest heavily in cleantech. In fact, GE was part of a venture capital round of $106 million for smart-grid company Trilliant on Thursday.

But Immelt said the challenge laid out by his firm and the venture capitalists was still a significant one, designed to foster entrepreneurship and ideas in a key sector of the economy—energy.

“I think $200 million dollars is not small. It's still an attractive amount. I think the combination of that plus saying you're going to work with a company that's got, you know, 45,000 or 50,000 engineers, 45,000 salespeople, and a global footprint. That's every entrepreneur's dream come true,” Immelt said.

Indeed it is. And the program also shows a willingness to work on something the Obama administration clearly sees as key.

Obama, as part of the stimulus program passed shortly after he took office, has steered billions of dollars to so-called clean technology, including companies involved in the so-called smart grid, designed to bring more energy efficiency into the system.

Immelt, for one, sees such a focus as making good business sense.

“We made a lot of money on it, so I'm going to go forward because I view it as a competitive advantage,” he said. “But I think in the next five years, we've got to rough it up, make it more common, change the words a little bit, drive the technology on easier things like energy efficiency and conservation, and I'm quite excited about all of that.”

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Kent Bernhard Jr. is News Editor of Portfolio.com