After the presidential inauguration on Monday, global leaders’ attention shifts today to the World Economic Forum. Or does it? Businessweek Editor Brad Stone reports from Switzerland. Plus: An update from our investigation into the human egg trade, and ideas for spending your annual bonus. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up. This week Washington, DC, and Davos, Switzerland, are both bitterly cold, covered in a layer of treacherous ice and drawing the attention of the entire world. After that, the similarities pretty much end. Washington was home to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration on Monday, a tech CEO-studded affair that made an explicit promise to put the US’s welfare ahead of the rest of the world’s. “From this moment on, America’s decline is over,” Trump said from the dais in the Capitol Rotunda. “We are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success.” It was sunny but snowy on Monday in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. Photographer: China News Service On Tuesday, almost 3,000 political and business honchos from around the world converged on Davos for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. The gathering is often lampooned as an extravagant networking event for the well-heeled. Unlike the inauguration, though, it unapologetically touts high-minded ideals to “drive global change” and “improve the state of the world.” The two events are a study in sharp contrast. The inauguration was about Trump’s vindication after four years in the wilderness, the expulsion of his political and philosophical enemies from power, and a celebration of allies such as Elon Musk. At the WEF, panel discussions and private conversations revolve around measuring the impact of threatened tariffs but also safeguarding climate alliances and improving global health. (Check out Bloomberg’s rolling live blog of Davos coverage.) It’s clear, however, that the concerns of Washington are ascendant. From left: Priscilla Chan, Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk were among the tech executives and their guests who attended the inauguration. Photographer: Shawn Thew/EPA Many of Trump’s inaugural guests are at the forefront of AI technology, and those in Switzerland are left to gauge how disruptive it will be. “I think the mid to early part of the 21st century will be remembered not for the existence of Donald Trump but for the moment that artificial intelligence changed society,” said Larry Summers, the former US Treasury secretary, at a lunch on Tuesday hosted by the technology company Sandbox AQ. A few business chiefs like Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong overcame the logistical challenges to straddle both worlds. They partied at the inauguration, then made for Switzerland. But it was impossible to escape the feeling that these are two entirely separate universes. While the elites gathered in Davos, the counter-elites—a new generation of upstarts seizing the levers of power—had a triumphal coming out party in Washington. Deglobalization is suddenly fashionable, but it’s hard to tell from the promenade in Davos, where the sponsored halls stretch from the Google House on one end to the yellow-and-blue-draped Ukraine House on the other. Celebrities like David Beckham, Diane von Furstenberg and Maria Sharapova partied among the CEOs and heads of state; and on Monday, climate activists covered the Amazon House in green paint, then sat forlornly in a police van as workers easily removed it. In perhaps the greatest endorsement of Davos’ stubborn relevance, Trump himself is scheduled to appear at the forum virtually on Thursday; he previously attended twice. Børge Brende, who’s been taking over the leading role at WEF from founder Klaus Schwab, naturally thinks Trump’s involvement is a positive signal. “It is very good that we have had Trump here. As it’s very good that we have had Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi here and Xi Jinping and [President of the European Commission] Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen. Even in this polarized, fragmented world, I think there are still areas where world leaders really need to talk to each other. The forum’s strength is that we bring people together, we set an agenda, but we also let the leaders then themselves try to find common ground.” That may be a slightly optimistic assessment. If the televisions tuned to the inauguration on Monday proved anything, it’s that the global agenda, at least this year, is very much being forged in DC instead of Davos. |