As President Donald Trump discussed with banking leaders at the White House in Washington, D.C., how the financial services industry can meet the needs of customers affected by COVID-19, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan Brian Moynihan (left) gestures.
Brendan Smirovsky | AFP | Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump will address some of the world’s most powerful corporate leaders on Thursday, albeit with some notable absences.
In addition to Trump, President Joe Biden’s chief of staff Jeff Zients Will speak to CEOs on Biden’s behalf as the president is in Italy for a Group of Seven meeting.
A Business Roundtable spokesman said “approximately” 100 of the exclusive forum’s more than 200 CEOs are expected to attend Thursday’s quarterly meeting in Washington, a turnout she called typical.
CNBC contacted more than 200 companies, whose CEOs were listed online as members of the business roundtable, to ask if they planned to attend Thursday’s meeting.
Only 17 people confirmed whether the company CEO was in attendance. The remaining 180-plus companies did not respond to emails for several days.
To our knowledge, four of the 17 corporate spokespeople who responded to CNBC said their CEOs planned to attend: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan and Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro.
Another 13 said their CEOs would not see Trump and Zients speak.
black stone Group CEO and Trump ally Steve Schwarzman, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, steel shell CEO Sarah Armbruster, Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods, delta Airline CEO Ed Bastian, Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick and company executive chairman James Gorman, as well as Duke Energy Chief Executive Officer Lynn Good will be absent from the meeting, according to company representatives.
Some, like Armbruster, Goode and Solomon, did not attend due to scheduling conflicts and travel. black stone CEO Larry Fink and Microsoft For example, CEO Satya Nadella will reportedly attend the G7 summit in Italy.
Representatives for Woods and Bastian did not respond to questions about why their CEOs did not attend the meeting. Representatives for Fink and Nadella did not respond to requests for comment.
The meeting’s list of attendees read like a list of CEOs willing to travel to Washington to hear Trump speak, just weeks after Trump was convicted in New York of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Trump’s comments on panel could also provide split-screen comparison What Biden said in his speech to CEOs He participated in the March 2022 Business Roundtable.
As the president campaigns for re-election, Biden is building on his administration’s record of aggressive antitrust enforcement with a sweeping ban on so-called junk fees, fees companies charge for services that cost them nothing.
The policies have drawn the ire of some business leaders and led them to support a second Trump administration and the regulatory deregulation it could bring.
Privately, however, Biden has also made his own efforts to curry favor with corporate America. The president meets regularly with CEOs and industry executives to discuss the U.S. economy’s post-pandemic recovery and global standing.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said busy executives are willing to make special trips to Washington to meet with Trump, a result of the intense presidential race.
“I think (CEOs) see what everyone else sees, and he’s going to win,” McCarthy said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
For some of the executives scheduled to attend Thursday, choosing to attend represents a shift in their attitude toward the former president. After Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, several senior officials had serious breaks with Trump, either publicly or privately.
Last year, Dimon told attendees at a New York Times DealBook conference that they should “help” Trump rival Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, win her primary against Trump.
Dimon said if Haley does well, voters may “make a better choice on the Republican side than Trump.” In response, the former president lashed out at Dimon on social media, calling him an “overrated globalist.”
But just two months later, Dimon changed his attitude.
“To be honest, taking a step back. (Trump) was right about NATO, he was right about immigration. His economy is doing great. Trade tax reform is working. His views on some of China’s issues are Correct,” Dimon said in an interview. On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Trump has outlined a second-term economic agenda that many economists believe could lead to a renewed rise in inflation, a scary prospect for investors and consumers who have been eager to Waiting for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to respond to the cooling of inflation.
The former president also proposed extending first-term tax cuts beyond 2025 and imposing tough tariffs on imported products, especially from China.
Speaking in Davos, Dimon signaled that he was willing to defend some of Trump’s policies, at least in part to prevent him or JPMorgan from ending up on the wrong side of a vengeful Trump.
“I have to prepare for both (Trump and Biden wins),” he said. “I’ll be prepared for both. We’ll deal with both.”
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