The Journal. - Corporate America's Embrace of Trump 2.0

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

CEOs of major companies are preparing for a second Trump administration, taking trips to Mar-a-Lago and contributing millions to his inauguration fund. WSJ's Chip Cutter explains corporate America's new strategy for engaging with the incoming U.S. president. Further Reading: -The CEOs Who Are Tearing Up the Policies Trump Hates  -Corporate America Drew Back From DEI. The Upheaval Isn’t Over.  Further Listening: -DOGE: The Plan to Downsize the Government  -How One Business Owner Is Getting Ahead of Trump's Tariffs  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After Donald Trump won the presidency in November, a flood of money started pouring into his inauguration fund. We've seen one company after another really kind of follow a similar playbook for how to deal with this administration. And it starts by opening their wallets. These donations are helping pay for stuff like galas and balls at the inauguration. And our colleague Chip Cutter has been following the money.

One executive after another has all decided to give a million dollars, sort of name the company, name the big brand. McDonald's? McDonald's gave money to this fund. Toyota, joining other major auto companies like Ford and General Motors in making $1 million donation to President. Boeing.

Boeing gave money to this fund. Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg, is also giving a million dollars to the fund. Walmart. Walmart gave money to the fund. Uber, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, the list goes on and on. What are these companies getting for this money?

So these companies get some tickets to the inauguration. There is a candlelit dinner that will be attended by Trump and Melania Trump. Actual things? Actual things. Spending that kind of money isn't unusual for companies to get in with a new administration. But this time feels a little different, because some companies that had once slammed Trump

are now cozying up to him. I think what has been striking this time is the level of shape-shifting that's happening from what companies have striking this time is the level of shape shifting that's happening. From what companies have done and said in the past and what they're saying now, companies see an opportunity. They realize that they need to be in Trump's ear, that now is the time. If you want to get your views in front of him, you need to do it now. And as one person told us, the billionaires are coming around the mountain. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Kate Leimbach. It's Friday, January 17th. Coming up on the show, corporate America comes around to Trump. Air Transat presents two friends traveling in Europe for the first time and feeling some pretty big emotions. This coffee is so good. How do they make it so rich and tasty? Those paintings we saw today weren't prints. They were the actual paintings. I have never seen tomatoes like this. How are they so red? With flight deals starting at just $589, it's time for you to see what Europe has to offer.

Don't worry, you can handle it. Visit airtransat.com for details, conditions apply. Air Transat. Travel moves us. Back in 2016, many business leaders were caught off guard by Trump's victory. Most of corporate America really didn't have a relationship with Trump then. You know, he was kind of a political unknown. And so a lot of executives didn't know what to expect. You might remember one of Trump's early moves was to ask CEOs to join so-called business councils, panels meant to advise him on economic matters. The bosses of companies like IBM and Pepsi signed up, but the relationship was shaky.

And almost from the very beginning, there were issues. Companies like Ford and others all pushed back against sort of Trump's early immigration moves in 2017. Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. CEOs quickly got out there to say how much they objected to this, in what was oftentimes called as Muslim travel ban. Nearly 100 companies are joining the legal fight against President Trump's executive order on immigration. Here's a rundown of many of the major ones. Nike, General Electric, Microsoft.

And Charlottesville was the big one. You will not replace us. It was a weekend of street battles and stark displays of racism, exploding into a deadly act of domestic terror. And it was Trump's comments that there were fine people on both sides, essentially, that really got CEOs upset. And after that happened, CEOs were almost tripping over themselves to get off of these councils and to distance themselves from Trump. into the, quote, divided political climate. — Mark's CEO, Kenneth Frazier, is resigning from the president's American manufacturing

council. — In response to those resignations, Trump attacked some of the CEOs and eventually shut down the business councils. Also during his first term, Trump was quick to strike out at companies that did things he didn't like. — He was willing to strike out at companies that did things he didn't like. He was willing to be threatening. I mean, he would make jabs at Amazon's Jeff Bezos, calling him Jeff Bozo, for example. Trump calling for a boycott of Major League Baseball and threatening Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola

after their stand on Georgia's new voting law. One company in particular really drew Trump's ire. Facebook, now known as Metta. Trump had accused its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, of steering Facebook against him. Trump published a coffee table photobook of his first term that showed him meeting with Mark Zuckerberg in the Oval Office. And that photo carried an ominous warning. The caption said, quote, we are watching him closely and if he does anything illegal this time, he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Because it's like with Trump, if things sour, all of a sudden you get a nickname and you get mentioned in the tweets and you get turned on. You get turned on. That's what companies are afraid of. If Trump can sort of whip up a large segment of the American public against a company or change sort of a public view of a company, that freaks executives out. They do not want consumers to turn against them either. Then came election day last November. Trump won both the Electoral College and the popular vote.

So corporate America started looking for some advice. One person they've turned to has a lot of experience on either side of Trump. She was both his one-time UN ambassador and later his political rival. So Nikki Haley is now advising companies, CEOs, and boards on how to navigate this next administration. Okay, so she's like taking her experience of working with Trump and making it a job for herself. That's right. She's telling CEOs if they are about to meet with Trump, here's how to handle that, here's what to say.

And so what does she say? Well, she says companies and CEOs should try to be more like Dolly Parton. ... kitchen for myself, a cup of ambition and yawning, stretching... Dolly Parton? Yes, the beloved country music star. Nikki Haley said Dolly Parton is a good example for how CEOs should operate. Even though Dolly Parton has for years supported gay rights and COVID-19 vaccine research and other efforts, her personal politics aren't really that well known.

I'm not being political. I don't do politics. I'm not getting into any of that because I have a lot of fans out there and I don't want to offend anybody. And besides, I just don't get into that. And so if you are deciding you may want to ask me something more serious, don't, because I'm not going to answer it. And Nikki Haley says this should be the model that, you know, basically CEOs should shut up. This is the advice Nikki Haley says will position companies well. So that's the Dolly Parton strategy when it comes to having opinions in public. And then there's dealing directly with Trump. And one big business leader thinks he cracked the code during Trump's first term. So for example, Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, has developed a real approach. And that's when he has dinner with Trump or he has a meeting with him. He will just bring one topic up

He knows that he doesn't want the conversation to wander or go in all different directions He wants to bring up one thing and try to use that time to really advocate for his positions and try to get Trump to understand What Apple is doing? Do you think there's something that companies learned from Trump 1.0 that they're applying now? I think they learned that they need to have a relationship with him. I think they realized that Trump is someone who values those one-on-one connections. They kind of know what Trump stands for now. They know how he operates. And many have come to the conclusion that it's better to engage, it's better to be sort of in his ear than it is to be on the sidelines,

quietly criticizing him or sort of publicly much more or loudly criticizing him. After the break, what companies are actually doing. There's so many things I want to do and see, like redoing the basement without having to do it all myself, or doing absolutely nothing, with a spectacular waterfall view, of course. So I'm starting here, investing with RBC. When it comes to reaching your goals, personalized advice and performance matter. And now you can get $300 when you invest with RBC. Offer ends March 3rd, 2025.

Terms and conditions apply. Invest with RBC today. We're so done with New Year, New You. This year, it's more you on Bumble. More of you shamelessly sending playlists, especially that one filled with show tunes. More of you finding Geminis because you know you always like them. More of you shamelessly sending playlists, especially that one filled with show tunes. More of you finding Geminis because you know you always like them. More of you dating with intention because you know what you want.

And you know what? We love that for you. Someone else will too. Be more you this year and find them on Bumble. Not long after election day, a lineup of private jets landed in Palm Beach, Florida. CEOs descended on Mar-a-Lago to have an audience with Trump. We've had everybody. Jeff Bezos came, Bill Gates came, Mark Zuckerberg came. Many of them came numerous times. The bankers have all come. Everybody's coming. I haven't had anybody saying anything bad about me.

I'm not used to it, but... And executives have been making real changes that align with Trump's vision for the country. We've seen companies roll back some of their DEI efforts. After the election, for example, Walmart did this. We've seen McDonald's walk back some of their DEI efforts. After the election, for example, Walmart did this. We've seen McDonald's walk back some of its DEI policies. We saw a number of big banks pull back from a UN-backed climate coalition. Over at Metta, the company ended fact checking on Facebook. It donated that million dollars to Trump's inauguration fund. And it also

named Dana White, chief executive of the UFC and a friend of Trump's, to its board of directors. So those were just like real moves it made that could be seen as trying to make Trump happy. There are also little things companies have done. Take Coca-Cola. The company has had a strained relationship with Trump. But this week, Coke gave Trump a gift.

The Coca-Cola company gifted Trump this special bottle commemorating his second inauguration. Look at that smile on the president-elect's face. Well, perhaps unsurprisingly, he's kind of loving it. The first term everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know. He's basking in all this attention and all these CEOs wanting to get his time. It's not yet clear how these strategies of playing nice with Trump will work out for companies in the long run. You know, how is the right going to view all of these moves by CEOs and by companies and are companies

really going to be as effective as they think they are and, you know, in donating to this fund and trying to shape policies in a way that they think Trump will appreciate? Like, we'll see how that's all received. He must see their shape shifting. I think he does. And so that's partly why some question, just whether this is all going to work or not. How does that make the statements that CEOs made those years back

about their values sound today? Well, I think some are looking at those and trying to kind of square all this and wondering like like where do CEOs really stand? They actually care about any of these issues they've talked about in the past? And I think many executives, when you talk to them quietly, they say like, yeah, we do actually. We do still care about climate change. We do still care about equality.

We just don't feel like this is a moment politically where we can speak out about those. Are there issues where you could see CEOs taking a stand? Yes. And so I keep asking about those. Are there issues where you could see CEOs taking a stand? Yes. And so I keep asking about this. Like give me the scenario where you might speak out this time. And one person who leads communications for a big multinational, he said the bar is so high right now that he says, I could see us putting out a public statement if Trump does something that has just seen as so egregious, so sort of against the law that we have to take a stand because we can't do business otherwise.

It's like, I could see us weighing in there, but otherwise, if it's just sort of policies that we don't like, we're not going to say anything. And I think there's a lot of companies that are in that boat. like, we're not going to say anything. And I think there's a lot of companies that are in that boat. Do you think we'll see companies take a stand or speak out about Trump policies that could impact their businesses pretty directly, like maybe mass deportations?

I was with a bunch of HR executives at a small breakfast. And they were all saying that they are preparing for this exact scenario. Like if there are mass deportations, what do we do? How do we respond? And the answer was, well, our lawyers have been advising us to have our paperwork ready, to know where our employees are. You know, if there are immigration raids, for example, we better be prepared for that. It was not, well, we're just all gonna band together

and there's gonna be a really forceful public letter. I just think that those days are kind of past us. On Monday at Trump's inauguration, the corporate charm offensive will be on full display. A bevy of high-profile CEOs and business leaders have snagged tickets to be with Trump. Google boss Sundar Pichai is planning to be in the crowd along with Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook and of course Elon Musk. What are the risks of these kinds of

moves for companies? Well I think the risk is that companies go too far and that they anger consumers, employees, other stakeholders. Many have said that there's just this risk that companies appear too cozy with the incoming administration. And that's, you know, this view among some employees, some consumers, that these companies are what some have described to us as spineless, that they're just willing to blow in whatever way the political winds blow, that they're not willing to stand up for broader principles. I mean, there are a lot of consumers, for example, that feel deeply concerned about climate change.

They really do worry about the state of equality in the workforce, and they want to see companies, you know, show that they care about these things. And so I think the cost here is that you turn up employees, you turn off consumers, and you just frustrate a lot of people. That's all for today, Friday, January 17th. Additional reporting in this episode by Eric Schwartzle. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube.

The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube.

The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and YouTube. That's all for today, Friday, January 17th. Additional reporting in this episode by Eric Schwartzel. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. The show is made by Katherine Brewer, Pia Gadkari, Rachel Humphreys, Ryan Knutson, Sophie Coddner, Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty,

Jessica Mendoza, Annie Minoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alessandra Rizzo, Alan Rodriguez-Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singie, Jeevika Verma, Lisa Wang, Katherine Whalen, Tatiana Zamis, and me, Kate Leimbach, with help from Trina Menino. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapok, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music this week by Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, Nathan Singapok, Griffin Tanner, So Wiley, and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking by Mary Mathis. Thanks for listening. See you Monday.