Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Snow covered alps, private jets, and coved white badges. The
Speaker 2: world's elite will descend on Davos for the World Economic
Speaker 2: this week.
Speaker 3: Hundreds of executives and world leaders have once again traveled
Speaker 3: to Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World
Speaker 3: Economic Forum the WEF.
Speaker 4: So true impact of CIS meeting stems from being united
Speaker 4: around the common mission of committed to improving sub state of.
Speaker 3: Subot That's WEF founder Klaus Schwab in his opening remarks
Speaker 3: on Tuesday. Historically, the gathering, which Schwab started in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy one, has been about dialogue and cooperation between businesses
Speaker 3: and governments. Billionaire attendees hear a lot about multilateralism and
Speaker 3: equity and inclusion. But this year something or someone is
Speaker 3: scrambling the Davos agenda together.
Speaker 1: We're going to cut your taxes, end inflation, slash.
Speaker 5: Your prices, getting them back.
Speaker 3: Down, raise your wages, and bring.
Speaker 1: Thousands of factories back to the USA.
Speaker 3: The second Trump era is here and the Davos set
Speaker 3: is adjusting.
Speaker 1: I think corporations are setting aside a lot of social
Speaker 1: questions questions that are not about the dollars and cents and.
Speaker 4: The bottom line.
Speaker 3: Ted Man covers money and influence for Bloomberg, and he
Speaker 3: says the approach many CEOs and presidents and prime ministers
Speaker 3: in Davos are taking is part of a larger trend.
Speaker 1: If you were a cynic about the rhetoric about climate change,
Speaker 1: for instance, or DEI coming out of this very costed
Speaker 1: set of rich people who are not going to be
Speaker 1: hurt by the worst things that happen, Yeah, this would
Speaker 1: kind of reward that cynicism, I think, because it flipped
Speaker 1: on a dime and they don't seem troubled by it.
Speaker 3: President Trump isn't making the trip to the World Economic
Speaker 3: Forum this year. They'll deliver a virtual address on Thursday.
Speaker 3: But fresh off Trump's inaucuration, the wheels at Davos are
Speaker 3: already turning, and business elites are more poised to align
Speaker 3: with him than ever before. I'm David Gura, and this
Speaker 3: is the big take from Bloomberg News Today. On the show,
Speaker 3: I talked to Bloomberg reporter Ted Mann about how President
Speaker 3: Trump's return to the White House is playing out in
Speaker 3: Davos and what that tells us about the influence he
Speaker 3: has in palaces, c suites and boardrooms around the world.
Speaker 3: So maybe for the uninitiated, you could describe what is
Speaker 3: taking place this week in Davos, Switzerland. This is a
Speaker 3: small ski town in the Swiss Alps.
Speaker 1: An invasion of the CEOs. Yeah, it's the biggest annual
Speaker 1: conference of the richest, most powerful people in business. I'm
Speaker 1: sort of flying into to talk about what they do
Speaker 1: to amass their fortunes and also how they think the
Speaker 1: world should operate itself.
Speaker 3: This year's list of attendees includes Ukraine's president Vladimir Zelenski,
Speaker 3: JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Diamond, and the heads of
Speaker 3: other big banks Barkley's and Bank of America, to name
Speaker 3: just a couple others.
Speaker 1: Historically, it's been a lot of conversations about the ways
Speaker 1: in which they expect the leading governments to exercise power
Speaker 1: and the way they, you know, essentially what business expects
Speaker 1: of democracies in some cases, and starting at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the Trump era, it was a lot of figuring
Speaker 1: out how to respond to this fairly unusual character who
Speaker 1: had taken power in the United States.
Speaker 3: During his first term in office, President Trump traveled to
Speaker 3: Davos twice.
Speaker 4: Ladies and gentlemen, pretace welcome forty fifths President of the
Speaker 4: United States Donald J.
Speaker 3: Trump to the States, and Ted says it was clear
Speaker 3: this was not friendly territory for the America first president.
Speaker 1: Going back to Trump's win in twenty sixteen, certainly through
Speaker 1: his victory last year, there has been a thread of
Speaker 1: distrust of globalism, just disdain for free trade. Really like
Speaker 1: discussed with some of the policy things that tend to
Speaker 1: come out of Davos, talking about climate change, talking about
Speaker 1: diversity and equity and inclusion, and so the very cultural
Speaker 1: whipping boys that the Trump movement loves to beat up
Speaker 1: on really emanate from places like Davas and the global
Speaker 1: financial structure that people like Steve Bannon and some of
Speaker 1: the thinkers behind the Trump movement have identified as the
Speaker 1: cause of misery for millions of Americans, like they're represented
Speaker 1: by Davos.
Speaker 3: That dissonance sometimes came to a head, like in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty when climate activist Greta Tunberg gave a speech just
Speaker 3: an hour after.
Speaker 4: This is not a time for pessimism. This is a
Speaker 4: time for optimism.
Speaker 2: You say, children shouldn't worry you say, just leave this
Speaker 2: to us, we will fix this. We promise we won't
Speaker 2: let you down. Don't be so pessimistic, and then nothing silence.
Speaker 1: You couldn't imagine a situation in which Donald Trump would
Speaker 1: be less comfortable, a powerful president but having to confront
Speaker 1: a young woman famous for climate activism and for idealism,
Speaker 1: when he is essentially a creature of almost its opposite.
Speaker 1: So four years ago, when it looked like the closing
Speaker 1: of the Trump period, there was I think a bit
Speaker 1: of a sigh of relief that this fairly unpredictable person
Speaker 1: and set of executives around him would be exiting the
Speaker 1: stage and they could get back to setting what at
Speaker 1: the time seemed like a more normal course of both
Speaker 1: business policies and social policies led by some of the
Speaker 1: executives who are in that scene.
Speaker 3: But with Trump back in office, Ted says, the forty
Speaker 3: seventh president is looming large over this year's gathering.
Speaker 1: It's not just that he's Donald Trump and that he
Speaker 1: has Trumpian inclinations about things that they care about. It's
Speaker 1: more that the United States did this dance once and
Speaker 1: is going back to do it again.
Speaker 3: How is their attitude toward Donald Trump different this time
Speaker 3: around than it was the first time he was inaugurated.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the biggest change is how quickly
Speaker 1: the rest of the crowd is falling into line. I
Speaker 1: would say that most of the business world is hivoting
Speaker 1: to account for Trump's inclinations and his policies and his
Speaker 1: stated preferences in a way that there was a little
Speaker 1: bit of resistance earlier. In the first phase, there was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a sense that the world would
Speaker 1: figure out how much they had to deal with Trump's
Speaker 1: way of seeing it. And now it is Trump's way,
Speaker 1: the highway. His re election and his return to power
Speaker 1: signals a new way that business will have to accommodate
Speaker 1: itself to, as opposed to setting its own verse of
Speaker 1: the normal and figuring out where he fits.
Speaker 3: In coming up, Ted breaks down how specific business leaders
Speaker 3: like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are shifting their approach
Speaker 3: to Trump. Since Donald Trump was elected again, a parade
Speaker 3: of some of the world's richest and most powerful men,
Speaker 3: including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, have showered
Speaker 3: the president with praise. None of them made the pilgrimage
Speaker 3: to Davos this week, but they were front and center
Speaker 3: at Trump's inauguration.
Speaker 5: Was one of the Who's who are the world's wealthiest
Speaker 5: people in tech elite surrounding President Donald Trump as he
Speaker 5: took the oath of office, all gathering a combined net
Speaker 5: worth exceeding one point three trillion dollars for the occasion,
Speaker 5: all sprinkled in among Trump's own family.
Speaker 3: I assume you've been thinking about this as I have been.
Speaker 3: But what's changed, What accounts for kind of the change
Speaker 3: in tact that we've seen from these executives who during
Speaker 3: the first term and after really wanted to have some distance,
Speaker 3: some remove from Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a really good question, and I think probably
Speaker 1: the answer is slightly different depending on which of those
Speaker 1: executives we're talking about. People like Jeff Bezos, they've experienced
Speaker 1: the risk of being on the wrong side of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was president, and he went after Bezos's newspaper,
Speaker 1: and he went after Bezos's Amazon Empire, and he went
Speaker 1: their Pentagon contracts, and he criticized their work with the
Speaker 1: Post Office. The Bezos who right now is cozying up
Speaker 1: to Trump and going to his Florida club and having
Speaker 1: dinner and sitting on the diasid his inauguration is a
Speaker 1: guy who has been on the wrong side of this
Speaker 1: power and seemingly does not want to be again. I
Speaker 1: think you could say the same with Mark Zuckerberg, where
Speaker 1: there has been over the majority of this past decade,
Speaker 1: this growing antipathy to big tech such as Facebook represents
Speaker 1: on the right the cliches there's no fighting city Hall. Well,
Speaker 1: there's no fighting in the White House, and that seems
Speaker 1: to be the posture that they've decided to adopt. And
Speaker 1: what's different this time is there's no prettying it up.
Speaker 1: They're not being coy about it. They're being very upfront
Speaker 1: about the fact that they will be on this guy's side,
Speaker 1: literally at his side as he takes office again. And
Speaker 1: that seems to be the biggest change that there's not
Speaker 1: going to be any sense of keeping a public posture
Speaker 1: where there's space for his opponents and the people who
Speaker 1: are horrified by Trump and scared of him. There are
Speaker 1: really no olive branches being offered in that direction by
Speaker 1: the leaders of these companies.
Speaker 3: At points of societal and political upheaval. Kind of see
Speaker 3: executives look right and look left, see how their counterparts
Speaker 3: are reacting. And I wonder how much of that is
Speaker 3: at play here that you have executives who are noticing
Speaker 3: the way that, say, Jeff Bezos is comporting himself from
Speaker 3: Mark Zuckerberg and taking cues from that, or are we
Speaker 3: seeing that on display in Davos, but more broadly in
Speaker 3: boardrooms and incorporations around the world.
Speaker 1: The answer seems to be yes. And certainly if you
Speaker 1: talk to the people who work for those executives, they're
Speaker 1: taking cues from the way others are playing it. Look
Speaker 1: at the way the Department of Governmental Efficiency, which is
Speaker 1: not a department, but this doge thing, it's popping up
Speaker 1: in the earnings calls. People are asking what this is.
Speaker 1: People are looking around saying, what do we have to
Speaker 1: acknowledge this thing? Do we have to talk about what
Speaker 1: we could get from it, how we could be hurt
Speaker 1: by it? And yet I think they're watching what their
Speaker 1: peers are doing. And that goes from the sort of
Speaker 1: government affairs level all the way up to the executive offices,
Speaker 1: and certainly in the weird Interregnum period where you had
Speaker 1: these pilgrimages down to mar A Lago, where one CEO
Speaker 1: after another or sometimes two at a time, would go
Speaker 1: and have lunch or have dinner with him. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: did seem to be that everyone realized, this is a
Speaker 1: trip we have to make, This is a tribute we
Speaker 1: have to pay. If my fellow tech billionaire is doing it,
Speaker 1: I should probably do it too. If I don't do it,
Speaker 1: will my investors wonder why I didn't If we suddenly
Speaker 1: get hit by some executive action and February So, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: they learn from each other's example.
Speaker 3: There are so many executives who are talking about the
Speaker 3: promise of there being less regulation. They're optimistic that the
Speaker 3: economy is really going to take off. Are there any
Speaker 3: dangers on the horizon, great clouds that these folks see,
Speaker 3: or are they kind of totally swept up in this
Speaker 3: optimism about the second term?
Speaker 1: Right now? The obvious answer is tariffs. I think Trump
Speaker 1: has been playing it a little bit differently than he
Speaker 1: said he would on day one, but it's clearly something
Speaker 1: that is still a possibility, and that would be unbelievably
Speaker 1: disruptive to individual companies, to the nations affected, to the
Speaker 1: flows of trade. And it's a bit of a cliche
Speaker 1: in American politics, but I think a lot of Trump's
Speaker 1: supporters really believe he's going to do what he says
Speaker 1: he's going to do, except for one thing that they
Speaker 1: hope he doesn't. And the biggest example of that is
Speaker 1: this tariff pledge that he's made, where he has tons
Speaker 1: of support from America's business leaders, but in private, most
Speaker 1: of them are really hoping that that does not turn
Speaker 1: out to be what he delivers.
Speaker 3: This year, Davos coincides with President Trump's inauguration, his first
Speaker 3: week back on the job. He's not going to go
Speaker 3: there in person, but he's going to do this virtual address.
Speaker 3: What are we likely to hear from him? What are
Speaker 3: folks who are gonna, I guess, gather in the Congress
Speaker 3: Center and watch this piped in from Washington. What are
Speaker 3: they going to be listening for?
Speaker 1: I mean, the safest answer to that question is to
Speaker 1: not try to predict exactly what he'll say, which like
Speaker 1: tarifs are a perfect example. Right like day one, We're
Speaker 1: going to do all this stuff and then they didn't
Speaker 1: do it on day one. But certainly Trump will be
Speaker 1: talking about American interests and will be repeating some of
Speaker 1: what he said in the inaugural speech. This notion that
Speaker 1: Americans have been taken advantage of. It's the consistent theme
Speaker 1: throughout his public career that we are not getting as
Speaker 1: much back from the world as we are giving. And
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to assume that that theme will
Speaker 1: be expressed throughout. We've gotten a raw deal and we
Speaker 1: are here to reset the terms of exchange on whatever
Speaker 1: particular topic he settles on, whether that's tariff's, whether that's
Speaker 1: the notion of combat and climate change, whether it's mentioning
Speaker 1: NATO and national security. That is the Trump message. The
Speaker 1: Trump message is that we've been getting screwed out of
Speaker 1: something and he's here to fix it. So I think
Speaker 1: that is, generally speaking, the theme that everyone should expect ted.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura.
Speaker 3: For more on how the Davos elite are preparing for
Speaker 3: another Trump presidency, check out this week's Trump Anomics Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: Stephanie Flanders convened a panel in Davos to discuss how
Speaker 3: leaders gathering through the World Economic Forum's annual meeting are
Speaker 3: realigning their priorities and business plans to better fit the
Speaker 3: new president's agenda. This episode is produced by Jessica Beck.
Speaker 3: It was edited by Aaron Edwards and Brian Schappata. It
Speaker 3: was fact checked by Adrian A. Tapia and mixed and
Speaker 3: sound designed by Alex Sagia. Our senior producer is Naomi
Speaker 3: Shaven and our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponceo. N cole
Speaker 3: Beemster Boor is our executive producer, and Sage Bauman is
Speaker 3: Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If you liked this episode, make
Speaker 3: sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever you
Speaker 3: listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show. Thanks
Speaker 3: for listening.
Speaker 4: We'll be back tomorrow