Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein on Friday offered one terse tweet in response to a report that he may announce his retirement as early as the end of 2018.
Via Twitter, the 63-year-old head of the world’s most prominent bank, in his signature tongue-in-cheek fashion, compared the news with Huckleberry Finn listening to his own eulogy — a reference to the Mark Twain satirical classic “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
The tweet:
It's the @WSJ's announcement...not mine. I feel like Huck Finn listening to his own eulogy.
— Lloyd Blankfein (@lloydblankfein) March 9, 2018
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal wrote that Blankfein was preparing to step down, ending a 12-year run as Goldman Sachs GS, +1.66% CEO. Still, Goldman’s shares ended Friday’s session up 1.7%, amid a broad market rally, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.77% , of which the bank’s stock is a component, closing the day up 1.8%.
The implication of the tweet is that Blankfein isn’t quite done running the bank yet. The Journal report allowed that he could stick around through 2019, the year of the investment bank’s 150th anniversary. The story also emphasized that Blankfein was in control of his timetable.