The Morgan Stanley star now leading Trump’s invest-in-America push

The White House is getting its own investment banker.

Michael Grimes, who spent three decades at Morgan Stanley as Silicon Valley’s top IPO rainmaker, is helming President Trump’s U.S. Investment Accelerator, an office to encourage domestic and foreign companies to invest money in the U.S.

It is part of the Trump administration’s broader “America First” agenda that aims to reinvigorate U.S. production and manufacturing, while reducing reliance on imports.

The role is a new one and its success will hinge on whether companies want the government’s help. Grimes will have a unique pitch for companies to come to him: An inside line to cut through red tape, help with permits and construction sites and work with state officials to get projects moving faster, people familiar with the plans said.

The Accelerator, a brainchild of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, was announced in an executive order from Trump last month.

The Accelerator doesn’t plan be an investor itself, according to people familiar with the project. Instead, the plan is for Grimes to provide white-glove service to companies that commit to investing $1 billion or more in the U.S.

In short, in many ways he will act like the professional investment banker he once was, dreaming up deals and brokering introductions.

The Accelerator will focus on large domestic projects above $1 billion, according to the executive order. It won’t be solely aimed at technology companies, though it is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Chips Act that the Biden administration passed to support American semiconductors.

Silicon Valley’s favorite banker

IPO bankers such as Grimes perform a task not unlike what he will be doing in Washington. When companies go public, they must convince public investors to purchase pieces of their business. Bankers help executives hone their sales pitches and make introductions to the fund managers who write the biggest checks.

No one had more success than Grimes in landing the IPOs of tech companies in recent decades. Facebook, Uber and Google were all clients. He was a star who remained loyal to Morgan Stanley blue for years.

He got his start in the 1990s under the tutelage of Frank Quattrone. When Quattrone left the bank for Deutsche Bank, Grimes remained behind.

Grimes worked to ingratiate himself with CEOs by proving he used their technology.

Ahead of Facebook’s 2012 IPO, Grimes played FarmVille, a game on the social-media platform, for hours.

Before Uber’s 2018 IPO, Grimes took up a side job as an Uber driver. Other bankers drove Ubers too, according to an adviser to the company, but Grimes was the most serious, showing up to pitch meetings with the copious notes he had taken during his time driving around San Francisco.

Grimes has a background in computer engineering that also helped impress tech clients. When Larry Page discovered Grimes’s engineering chops during Google’s IPO in the early aughts, Page was incredulous that Grimes chose banking over engineering, according to one person familiar with the exchange.

“He doesn’t talk like a banker. He isn’t slick,” said Eric Ries, founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange who met him through a mutual friend. “He’s charming in a dorky way.”

Working with Elon Musk

While Grimes’s star grew, other banks tried to steal him away from Morgan Stanley, people familiar with his tenure said.

Morgan Stanley’s management gave him freedom to run his business. Other bankers would typically be added to management committees and involved in firmwide strategy, but Grimes stuck to his IPO job.

Grimes was drawn into the government this year, in part because of his connection to Elon Musk, who has become part of Trump’s inner circle.

Grimes’ relationship with Musk goes back years and he played a key role when Musk decided to acquire Twitter in 2022. Musk’s largest company, SpaceX, is viewed as a golden goose by IPO bankers.

Grimes told some clients ahead of his move to Washington that he would be working with the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk’s cost-cutting venture. Since joining the Trump administration, Grimes has been helping cut costs and jobs in the Commerce Department.

Write to Corrie Driebusch at corrie.driebusch@wsj.com