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In a stark display of money and power, the three wealthiest men on the planet lined up on Monday in the Capitol Rotunda to witness Donald Trump being sworn in as the 47th president.
The message was clear: With a president in office who wants to be known as a deal maker, Washington is open for business.
The three men, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, collectively worth close to a trillion dollars, were seated in front of Trump’s cabinet picks and behind his family, creating what might be a hierarchy of influence.
And then there was Musk. The entrepreneur, who spent over a quarter of a billion dollars to help get Trump elected and is likely to get a West Wing office to run a government-spending task force, was seated closest to the president.
Notably absent was Peter Thiel, one of Trump’s earliest backers, who hosted a blowout at his Washington mansion this weekend.
Crypto executives, technology investors and bankers, all of whom are focused on deregulation, are apparently looking forward to a second Trump term. Others expressed alarm over a possible trade war and how that might affect European unity if Trump tried to broker deals with individual countries.
Many said that things felt quieter in Davos than in years past. That could be because of the inauguration in Washington, the snowstorm in New York or the fact that more people were simply planning to arrive later (or some combination of the three.) The weather in the Swiss ski town is a lot milder than usual though, making it easier to go from meeting to meeting.
Tensions with others in the Trump orbit, particularly with Musk, were a factor in Ramaswamy’s exit. It also followed Mr. Ramaswamy’s comments blaming an American culture that venerated “mediocrity over excellence” for top tech companies often hiring foreign-born engineers.
The apparent clash over skilled worker visas underscores how potent that issue has been among Trump allies. While immigration hard-liners favor clamping down on the program, the tech cohort, led by Musk, wants to preserve it. So far, Trump appears to be siding with the H-1B defenders.
Deals:
* Andrea Orcel, the acquisitive C.E.O. of the Italian lender UniCredit, said that he intended to continue his pursuits of an Italian rival, Banco BPM, and of Commerzbank of Germany.
* Investors including Brookfield and the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky have reportedly been invited by Berlin to bid for the state-owned utility Uniper.
Politics and policy:
* President Trump picked Caroline Pham, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as the agency’s acting chair.
* “‘We’re running out of time’: GOP already antsy on Trump’s Hill agenda”
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