The Daily Signal - From Rockefeller to Musk: When CEOs Meet Presidents

Episode Date: February 16, 2025

Presidential historian and former Bush administration official Tevi Troy discusses his new book, "The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry." Troy explores the complex relationship between CEOs and presidents throughout presidential history—from historical examples like John D. Rockefeller to modern tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg. The evolving role of business leaders in politics is already evident in President Donald Trump's second term, most notably with Elon Musk shaping policy and directing DOGE's efforts to streamline government. Troy examines how CEOs must navigate Washington's corridors of power while balancing corporate interests and political pressures. The conversation also covers pressing issues like AI regulation, tariffs, and the shifting landscape of corporate America's stance on social issues. Listen to the full conversation on this special interview edition of "The Daily Signal Podcast." Keep Up With The Daily Signal  Sign up for our email newsletters: https://www.dailysignal.com/email  Subscribe to our other shows:  The Tony Kinnett Cast: https://www.dailysignal.com/the-tony-kinnett-cast  Problematic Women: https://www.dailysignal.com/problematic-women  The Signal Sitdown: https://www.dailysignal.com/the-signal-sitdown  Follow The Daily Signal:  X: https://x.com/DailySignal  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedailysignal/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDailySignalNews/  Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@DailySignal  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DailySignal  Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/TheDailySignal  Thanks for making The Daily Signal Podcast your trusted source for the day’s top news. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and never miss an episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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we are going beyond the headlines to discuss the issues and events that have and are shaping this nation. Welcome to the Daily Signal podcast, weekend edition. I'm Rob Bluey, your host today. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll be right back with today's interview. Live from Indiana syndicated nationally from the Daily Signal, it's the Tony Kinnettcast. Man, you've got me hooklight and seeker. Now I want to tune into your program.

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We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure-grim. growth and expansion advice, and we can talk your ear off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do, business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us, and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk, business. Tevi Troy is the author of a new book called The Power and the Money. he's also a veteran of the George W. Bush presidential administration and a presidential historian in his own right. Tevi, thanks for joining the Daily Signal today.

Yeah, and you forgot to say that I'm also a loyal Daily Signal listener, so it's great to be on the show. You certainly are, and we appreciate you and everybody else who tunes in regularly to this show. I want to get to the book, but I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you from your perspective as a presidential historian, your early take on Donald Trump's second term in office. It really is a remarkable opening to a presidency and shows the contrast between someone who goes into the presidency not sure what they're to do, which included Trump's first term, but also Bill Clinton at the beginning of his administration. And then someone who comes in with experience who says, I know exactly what I'm going to do and I'm going to do it. The other thing it makes me think about is the concept of presidential time. When I was in the White House, Carl Rove used to talk about how the most precious resource you have is the president's time.

And you have to make sure you don't abuse it, but that you also don't fail to use it enough because it's so valuable. And it seems to me that between the first term and the second term, Trump has a much more acute sense of presidential time and how much, how limited it is and how you need to use it quickly or it doesn't get, you don't maximize its value. And it's a stark contrast to the Biden administration, which I got to say, I don't know what they were doing with presidential time. But obviously they had a limited capacity person at the head and that factored into how they were approaching things. That's a great point, Tevi. And one of the things that I note is that even when he's traveling on Air Force One or maybe en route to something, I mean, it always seems like there's some sort of news coming out of the White House. He's not missing a moment to do something. And that is a significant turnaround and change from what certainly I observed during his first term.

As you know, he's the second president to have a break between terms. So how did those four years outside of the White House perhaps give him a better perspective on what he wanted to do during his second term? Well, I think the first of the first, I think he was more surprised that he won the first time. And I don't think they had plans. It seems like this time they clearly have plans that were thought out and pre-written. And also, I think he thought a lot more about staff. The staff seemed to be much more loyal to him. The first time there were a lot of people with a lot of different ideological perspectives.

You and I have talked previously about my book Fight House, about infighting in the White House. And one of the reasons there were so much infighting in the first Trump White House is because there were different ideological factions, all of whom could make a legitimate argument that their way was the true Trump way. And I think now, after having him on the scene for 10 years in the political realm, I think we know a little bit more clearly what Trump stands for. And I think he was more careful about bringing in people who are just in that. vein who share his ideological predilections.

Now, how important is the role of chief of staff when it comes to that very point that you just made? What have you observed not only in this second Trump term, but previous presidents, and who's effective in that role of chief of staff? Yeah, I think the chief of staff role is hugely important. Again, I talk a lot about it in Fight House. But Susie Wiles, who is the chief of staff this term, really brooked no nonsense during the campaign. You didn't hear a lot of leaks.

You didn't hear a lot of infighting. That was not the case in the first Trump campaign. It certainly was not the case in the first Trump White House. In the first Trump White House, there were four different chiefs of staff, one each year. And each of them tried in different ways to curtail the infighting and were ultimately unsuccessful. I think Wiles could last way longer than any of the first term Trump chiefs of staff. Maybe she'll be there all four years, although that's a long time for a chief of staff. But it is, and Trump calls her the ice maiden, in part because of her coolness and her willingness to control.

control things. And I think that makes a difference. No, it certainly does. I mean, we've certainly noticed it covering it from a media standpoint, the level of organization at the White House and the discipline in terms of messaging as well. You know, your book, The Power and the Money hit the scene at the perfect time, quite frankly, given the role of CEOs and those in industry and how they were perhaps changing their perspective and outlook on a second Trump term, but also how Trump has brought some key leaders in the business world into his administration. Most notably, Elon Musk, one of the most successful businessmen of our time. And so tell us what prompted you to take a look

at this presidential history when it came to the clashes and collaborations between chief executives and the commander-in-chief. Well, as you know, Rob, I've written five books on the presidency, and with each one, I try and write about presidents in blank, with the blank being something that no one us covered before, but also speaks to our current moment. And as I was thinking in the early 2020s, what I wanted my next book to be about, I noticed that almost every day you saw CEOs in the headlines, CEOs of these massive enterprises that are really shaping everything about what we do, the way we communicate, the way we interact, the way we do medicine, the way we develop entertainment. And at the same time, both parties seem very critical of CEOs in a way that you hadn't seen

previously. It used to be just the Democrats were more critical of corporations and now it was the Republicans as well. And I wanted to get at the heart of what was happening there. So I decided to profile 18 different CEOs who had interactions with multiple presidents. If you just dealt with one president, you didn't make the book. You had to deal with multiple presidents. Jack Welch, for example, dealt with 10 different presidents. It's really remarkable because these CEOs have much longer staying power. They can be on the scene a lot more than the two terms that a president can get, unless you're Franklin Roosevelt. So the fact that these CEOs have this 150-year history of dealing with the White House

was really an interesting story to tell. And then it happened to correspond with this period right now where CEOs are at the top of the agenda every day. Oh, yeah. No, that's certainly the case. What were some historical trends that you observed in your profiles that maybe existed both back then and are current today? Yeah, there's one pattern that I noticed in the book that was recurring. And it really starts at the beginning of the story with John D. Rockefeller, massive entrepreneur, innovator, creates the petroleum industry almost from scratch over a 10-year period between 1870 when he was a nobody in 1880. He had 90% of the refining capacity in the U.S. But he basically ignores Washington because he doesn't think it's relevant to him. And initially, at the beginning of the story, it isn't because there's very little government regulation, very little government legislation that can address what he is doing.

But by the early 1900s when Teddy Roosevelt is president and has this progressive anti-corporative cent, then suddenly his strategy, Rockefeller's strategy of ignoring government is not workable anymore. And indeed, Rockefeller's company is broken up by Roosevelt. It happens in the next administration, the Taff administration when the Supreme Court rules on it. But his company is broken up because he wasn't paying enough attention to what was happening in Washington. And again, that's a recurring theme in the book. I talk about Lou Wasserman, the Hollywood. agent who thought he could ignore Washington and then suddenly Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department

comes after him and he completely recalibrates and says, I've got to pay attention to what's going on there. He befriends Lyndon Johnson. He befriends Ronald Reagan, who he'd been his agent. He even befriends a young Bill Clinton. And then the third wave of this story is Bill Gates. Also, very much like Rockefeller, builds this new enterprise, thinks he can ignore Washington, has this thing that the private sector is three times faster than government, the high-tech sector is three times faster than the private sector. So we're nine times faster than the federal government. Well, that's true, but the federal government is real big. And if it grabs you by the ankle, it's not letting go. And Bill Gates is chastened by the end of his experience in which the Clinton Justice Department

goes after his company. And years later, when he meets a young Mark Zuckerberg and Zuckerberg is looking for his advice, Gates says to him, get an office there now. And by there, he means Washington, D.C. It's very interesting. Well, I'm glad you brought up Zuckerberg, because one of the notable changes that meta has made was replacing some of its senior leadership in Washington. So how have these corporate leaders adjusted to the change in political party in the White House and maybe the different leaders that have taken office in terms of calibrating their own businesses? And whether it be historical examples or current, I'm just curious to get your take on how much that change in leadership at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue makes them

refine their approach to their corporate leadership. Yeah, it's a good question. And I think there's two sides to this question. One side is generally ignored. The side that everybody talks about is Trump and how people feel like they have to kiss the ring to Trump and they're coming and maybe changing their tune on Trump because he's in power and they're afraid of him.

But the other side is how hostile the Biden administration was to these entities. Joe Biden even said, I don't like Mark Zuckerberg. He said he didn't like meta-Facebook. Elon Musk had a whole bunch of regulatory actions targeting his companies that the Wall Street Journal wrote about. And the journal had a very interesting concept on this. They said, we doubt there was some memo written from Biden saying go after his companies with regulatory actions. But the message from the Biden administration to the regulators couldn't have been clearer by disapproving of him and criticizing him. It seemed like it was

carte blanche open season on Musk and his companies and they felt the heat. So Musk was against the Republicans or for the Democrats in 2012, 2016, 2020. This is the first time he's back to Republican for president in 2024. Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, they helped out Obama tremendously in the 28 and 2012 campaigns. So it's not like these companies are all of a sudden say, you know, have always been Republicans or ideologically conservative. They are recognizing there's hostility on the Democratic side that is part of why they're changing their tune. then the other side is maybe they see an opportunity with Trump, Musk certainly to get things done from the Doge perspective,

but Zuckerberg thinks that maybe the Republicans are a better way to protect his company's interests going forward. Now, having served in a presidential administration, Tevi, I mean, you know as well as I do that Elon Musk isn't the first corporate CEO to take on a high-profile government role. I mean, certainly I think of Paul O'Neill in the Bush administration, right? So you have a situation, though, now with Doge, where his influence over so many different aspects of government

certainly seems to be catching Democrats by surprise and many in the media, maybe slightly alarmed at the extent of access that he has. Is this unprecedented or help us fully understand, you know, the role that Elon Musk is currently playing in the Trump administration, and if there is a historical narrative that we can draw back to? Yeah, what I often find is that there's never anything exactly

analogous in history. There's nobody been like Musk before who remade the electric car and they're sending people into space and there's a multi-hundred billionaire and created something called Doge. But in the 1950s, Henry Luce, who was the founder and editor and publisher of Time Magazine, backed Eisenhower very strongly. He gave him staff members. Do you think about the backpack guys who were helping out Musk and Trump? He helped write the Republican foreign policy platform. He wrote editorials in favor of Eisenhower. And when Eisenhower won, he became an advisor to the administration of the outside and his wife became ambassador to Italy.

So you do have these instances where corporate folks have helped before and have been rewarded before. So again, not exactly the same as Musk, but there are certainly echoes of it in history. Interesting. You know, to that point, what are some ways that presidents are really dependent on CEOs, not necessarily serving in an advisory capacity. But, you know, obviously we saw during the Biden administration the effect of inflation and some of the economic challenges that persisted throughout his four years in the White House. And so what are some of the things that CEOs on the outside are able to do

if perhaps they have a strong relationship or want to see that president succeed? Yeah, it's a good question, Rob, because this really is a two-way street. That's why the story in the power of the money is an interesting one, because there are things presidents can get from CEOs, but there are also things that CEOs want from the White House in terms of they might want good policy in general that's good for the country. They might want policies that are helpful to their company. It might look good for them to be seen by and with the president. So there are benefits there. At the same time, the presidents want things as well. Corporate campaign cash is something they can get from them. It looks good to have CEOs around you

who praise what you're doing with the economy. Trump, I think, recognized in this last campaign that the celebrity value of Elon Musk today is more than the celebrity value of the people the Democrats who are trotting out, who people who don't, we don't really know. I mean, Cardi B. I didn't make any sense to me that Kamala Harris was campaigning with her. I don't even know anything about her. But Elon Musk, everybody knows. So I think Trump recognized that there's a celebrity value to business moguls that there may not be to pop stars in our disaggregated popular culture where not everybody listens to the same music anymore. And so to that point then, how have CEOs had to adapt in terms of their political awareness and perceptions?

Like, for instance, Joe Rogan being an example, a popular podcaster who Mark Zuckerberg spends three hours with. I mean, are these the types of things that CEOs are now expected to do and their corporate PR teams are encouraging them to do because they need to be part of this conversation when it comes to politics in our country? Yeah, absolutely. I recommend in the book and the smartest CEOs I talk about in the book are paying way more attention to Washington than the past. I talk about Jamie Diamond, who is one of the heroes of the book in a way because he's so smart and strategic about how he deals with Washington. When Jamie Diamond became head of a city, he was going down, of JP Morgan Chase, sorry, he was going down to Washington twice a year. And after seeing how heavily regulated the banking industry is, he started going down to Washington twice a month. That's a huge commitment of CEO time.

But he thinks it's worth it. He sees the value in doing it because Washington has such a say over what he does and what he can get accomplished. Do you think CEOs can keep pace with the extent of changes that are taking place so rapidly under Trump's second term? Well, they have to. I mean, there's no choice. And if you can't, the thing about CEOs is they can be replaced much easier than presidents. I said that some of them have longer staying power, like Henry Luz or Henry Ford out around for decades. But the other thing is sometimes you see CEOs replaced pretty quickly.

I mean, look at the Disney situation where the previous CEO stepped down. The new guy came in and that wasn't working out. So the old guy came back in. So the CEOs need to keep pace. And it is a tough and rapidly changing world. And there's a lot of competitors out there. But that's the American system. and I wouldn't have it any other way.

And the reason I could write the power and the money about the American system and pretty much not about any other system in the world is because we have this entrepreneurial drive and this free market that allows new companies to rise up. If you look at the S&P 500 30 years ago, it's completely different than the top companies today. We talk about the fang stocks. None of those companies existed 25 years ago.

So there's rapid change all the time. You may look at the S&P 500 from one quarter to the next and say, wow, there's stability, it's not moving. But if you look over 25-year increments, huge amounts of change. Yes, and let me ask you about that. I'm glad you brought that up because obviously artificial intelligence or AI is rapidly changing how we do business here in Washington, but across this country. And I'm just wondering, what are some of the things that you would expect to see this administration do over the course of the next four years, not only in terms of working with businesses, but when it comes to addressing a technology like this, they could so transform our

society. Yeah, it's a really good question. And it's something I've been putting my thinking hat on about. So first of all, I think we need to encourage AI so that America is the leader in AI going forward. So we need to use that free market system. And we are usually the best at technological innovation because we give people the freedom to do things.

If you look at that Chinese AI, it had some interesting technological and improvements, but at the same time, it was handcuffed by the censorship of the Chinese Communist Party. We don't have that, and that gives us an advantage. The second thing is I would like to see AI be used to improve regulatory processes. You mean, you look at the FDA. The thing that limits their ability to approve new, life-saving, life-improving products is staff time. They have to look over these massive submissions. Well, AI can do that.

Now, I'm sure the FDA is a somewhat slow agency to reform. and to make changes. But incorporating AI into what they do can be transformative. And I think we're at the cusp of a biomedical revolution with AI and informatics and the unlocking of the human genome. And the thing that is the constraint on that is the regulatory state. How are we going to regulate for these new massively quick changes that are going to be taking place? And I think using AI in the regulatory process can help speed up the biomedical innovations that are going to come up from AI in the scientific world. Those are some great examples. I mean, certainly it is an exciting, exciting time and it'll be

interesting to closely watch what the government is able to do. You know, you mentioned regulations, and you also referenced earlier how traditionally Republicans have been much more friendly to business leaders and CEOs than Democrats. And yet, during the tenure of Donald Trump and his more populous nature, that hasn't necessarily flipped. Maybe there's equal disdain for CEOs among both parties today. Yet at the same time, I mean, Trump has come out and said that he wants to cut regulations for every new regulation that's issued, 10 need to be removed. I mean, this would seem to really encourage and excite businesses who don't necessarily

like all of that red tape from Washington. And so what's your perspective on kind of the state of the political parties today and how corporate leaders need to look at them, maybe carefully evaluate, who they want to align their values with? Yeah, it's a really interesting question. there's a whole bunch of things going on. So first of all, when it comes to deregulating business leaders like Republican policies better. But on the other hand, culturally, the business leaders go to elite schools often, and culturally, they're more comfortable with the Democrats. And then you

have issues where both sides seem to be in positions that are not necessarily favored by corporations, let's say, cracking down on immigration or tariffs. A lot of business leaders want to see more legal immigration, certainly, and they're wary of tariffs. And both parties are not necessarily free traders. So I think it's more of a muddle today. It's not just a clear answer. Oh, the Republicans are the answer for me. They have to make more complicated assessments. So obviously, I think of being a Republican, the Republicans are in general better for business. But I'm just saying that there's a lot more complications today. And especially if you look at the workforces, if let's say you have a high-tech Silicon Valley company and your workforce,

is very hostile to Republicans. You as a CEO have to take that into account as well. That's why I thought it was very interesting that META said they're moving a lot of operations to Texas, basically saying that the California workforce is too far gone and that they can't actually use them to advance the interests of the company. So a lot of factors go into these CEO decisions about where they're going to be politically. You mentioned two things that I want to follow up on what is on the tariffs point. The other I'll come back to on some of the cultural issues.

So we saw President Trump issue these tariffs. against China, Mexico, and Canada, and then of course, that immediately prompted a response from Mexico and Canada, and he was to temporarily pause them. But what does that kind of uncertainty when it comes to tariffs mean for corporate leaders? Do they take a wait and see approach because they understand this is merely a negotiating tactic on the part of Trump? Or do they have to seriously think about the implications for their businesses and what it might mean for consumers? Yeah, the way it all played out, it makes you think that perhaps Trump just wanted to get those concessions from the Canadians and the Mexicans, but he always meant to just impose the

tariffs on the Chinese. And that makes some sense, given where the Chinese are in terms of being our geostrategic challenger. I don't want to quite use the word enemy, but challenger is the word will stick with. So I think that may be the way we look at it in retrospect. But at the time, I'm not sure that corporate leaders knew that. And they were just saying, oh, my gosh, tariffs on Canada and Mexico, that could be bad for my business. So I think that what's how. happening in short term and what happens in the long term are very different, and you can't always know how these things are going to play out. And again, that is a factor in how the CEOs are considering these issues. On the cultural question, you know, in 2020 following the death of George

Floyd in Minnesota, we saw a number of corporations rush to embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion. Separately, we saw many corporations adopt environmental social governance policies, and then even just recently in the days since President Trump's re-election, there's been many corporations who've walked back those policies or decided that they may not best be what they want to pursue at this particular time. How much influence did the election of Trump have in some of those decisions? Or do you think that there were other factors that maybe led to those corporations deciding that this wasn't the path they wanted to go down today?

I think Trump was an accelerant in corporations moving away from it. But you also saw the backlash against Bud Light, the backlash against Target, both of which were covered on the Daily Signal, by the way. So thank you for that. And so I think, again, there's more complicated factors at work. But I think certainly if Harris had won the election, you wouldn't see these companies saying, okay, we're giving up on DEI now. So, yeah, I think the political thing is at the forefront of a cultural change that may be taking place.

But another thing that's worth mentioning is you talked about how these corporations overreacted in reaction to what happened with George Floyd in 2020. And I thought at the time that was a mistake. And I think corporations need to be a little more moderate, meaning not moderate politically, but moderate in the way they make their changes. The Michael Jordan mantra of Republicans buy sneakers too is really a good one that you should always keep at the top of mind. And what I recommend in the book and the power of the money for CEOs is they need to increase

their level of engagement in Washington, but decrease their level of partisanship. and that will allow them to be more influential over the course of multiple administrations. We're talking to Tevi Troy, who's the author of the power and the money. Tevi, what else do you have cooking in your shop? What can we expect to see from you in the future? Any particular stories there are trends that you're closely following these days? Well, I'm really interested in technology and how it's influencing politics and the culture. and so one thing I've been looking at is AI.

I'm also looking at something in the pharma space that I'll want to talk to you about, maybe on the Daily Signal when it comes out. And I also recently joined the Ronald Reagan Institute because I think Ronald Reagan was a great president and someone I really admire. And they're upping their game in Washington and I want to be more on top of things in terms of commenting on the news and political developments and where conservatism goes, where defense policy goes, and where America goes in the years ahead. Well, thank you. We appreciate you joining the Daily Signal. Of course, Ronald Reagan's portrait is now hanging in the Oval Office, Trump's Oval Office. So that was a nice gesture to our 40th president. And I'd like to see it.

Yes. Well, Debbie Trey, we'll make sure to include a link in the show notes and our story for your book and your other books. Thank you so much for spending time with The Daily Signal today. It was great to see you. Thank you so much. We are going to leave it there for today. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new shows from The Daily Signal. Every weekday, catch top news in 10 right here in this podcast feed. Keep up with the news that you care about in just 10 minutes every weekday at 5 p.m. And go deep with us right here every weekend for the Daily Signal's podcast interview edition. If you like what you hear on any of our shows, let us know by leaving a comment.

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