The News
A year ago in Davos, Nasdaqās President Tal Cohen explained to me the value of proximity to Donald Trump: āThe last voice in the room is the most impactful.ā Back then, pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago and cameos at the inauguration were, CEOs thought, a way to influence the president, whose bid-ask approach to governing endeared many in the business community to Trump during his first term. Show up, say the right things, shape policy.
A year later, that two-way radio has become a megaphone. There is still value in showing up, but any hope of influence is gone. āBeing in the room enables me to get that feedback,ā on what clients can expect on issues like tariffs, Tim Walsh, chair and CEO of KPMG US, told my colleague Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson this week, but āIām not sure weāre getting new information.ā Or as GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik said on stage at Semafor Haus: āIām always just trying to listen.ā Trying to āfind opportunitiesā to plug into the White Houseās agenda means ālistening carefully and consistently, and find[ing] that pattern recognition as best you can,ā he said.
Real influence over Trump costs money, if itās available at all. The best executives and investors can do is try to separate signal from noise. Markets are getting better at that: pre-pricing in the TACO trade, for example, explains the lack of market swings on swing-worthy headlines. But it casts masters of the universe as passive participants in what many had expected to be a bustling marketplace for influence-peddling.
Notable
- In an on-stage interview with Semaforās Ben Smith at Davos Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom brandished āTrump Signature Seriesā kneepads for CEOs and politicians who were āselling outā to the president.
- Although the president has unsettled some business leaders with his threats to acquire Greenland, āmany bankers still argue, however, that M.&A. will go up this year, and that the gloomy talk is a distraction, not a threat,ā Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote in The New York Times.