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Some chief executives making annual treks to Davos got a surprise note Monday: Donald Trump wanted to meet.
The US president plans to convene a group of corporate executives Wednesday evening after his anticipated speech at the World Economic Forum. The agenda is unclear, but the invites sent corporate staffers scrambling to rework schedules that have been months in the making.
Tim Walsh, Chair and CEO of KPMG US, told Semafor he hoped to be at the meeting: “Being in the room enables me to get that feedback,” on what clients can expect on issues like tariffs, he said, but “I’m not sure we’re getting new information.”
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Trump has loomed large over Davos, where he is making his second in-person appearance. (Even as a videoconference participant last year, he managed to be WEF’s main character, assembling a group of CEOs for what was set to be a softball Q&A and then humiliating them.)
The boosterism of 2025, when corporate executives cheered Trump’s promises of tax cuts and deregulation, has hardened into a wary deference. Still reeling from Trump’s tariffs and alarmed by his threats to seize Greenland — an issue which risks spiraling into armed conflict in the Arctic — most CEOs have little appetite to pick fights they see scant chance of winning.
Some 850 of them are expected to attend this week, along with more than 100 chairs of corporate boards.