James Arnold Talbot (December 13, 1879 in Paris, Kentucky – July 17, 1936) was an American businessman who became President of the Western Pipe and Steel Company of San Francisco, California in the 1910s, and who later became head of the Richfield Oil Company based in the same city. Talbot was interested in aviation and in the 1920s helped set up Western Air Express, an aviation company which instituted the first regularly scheduled passenger airline service in US history.