In Davos: Trump makes threats and promises on oil, Russia, and ‘debanking’

Besides getting semi-crushed by the media scrum around Argentine President Javier Milei as I sat with a source, politics is mainly a backdrop in discussions about how business leaders are managing everything from climate change to deploying AI. (I’ll share more insights from those interviews in the coming days.)

For Christian Ulbrich of JLL, a global real estate consultancy with 110,000 employees, one challenge is navigating a thicket of changing regulations such as a German law that requires companies to monitor hours and enforce breaks for remote workers, which cut JLL employee productivity there by 20%, to state regulations around building in places like New York and California. The biggest issue for CEOs, he argues, is not knowing what’s next. “We usually need to operate in a framework that’s pretty steady,” he says. “What’s right today may be wrong tomorrow and that is a risk to the US economy.”

Overall, the mood in Davos was extremely optimistic around AI. Fortune AI editor Jeremy Kahn ended our roster of events with a conversation about the perks and perils with AI pioneer Andrew Ng and Signal president Meredith Whittacker (a longtime critic of what she calls “surveillance capitalism”). Leaders need to think about the risk of unintended consequences in giving generative agents access to data, they said.

Our annual CEO dinner was the most fun I had in a week of truly stimulating conversation. In an era seemingly filled with caricature heroes and villains, here was an opportunity to meet global leaders from business, government and NGOs, and connect with them on a real, human level to talk about what’s next. (I kept running into singer/entrepreneur Aloe Blacc and RBC CEO Dave McKay.)That’s why we create our own opportunities to gather, from Fortune’s annual New York dinner on March 18, to the Fortune Global Forum, which will take place this year in Riyadh, on October 26-27. And we’ll have many other dinners and gatherings, too. I hope you’ll join the conversation.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady, diane.brady@fortune.com, or on Linkedin. More news below …

TOP NEWS

Want to end the war? “Drill baby drill”: Trump, beaming into Davos, argued that increased production would lower the price of oil and end the war in Ukraine. Russia needs oil prices to stay above $94 per barrel to break even on its supplies, according to S&P Global. “If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately,” Trump said.

But Wall Street doesn't want more drilling, analysts say. They like high prices. “The incentive, if you will, to just drill, baby, drill . . . I just don’t believe that companies are going to do that,” said Wil VanLoh, chief executive of private equity group Quantum Energy Partners, in the FT. “Wall Street will dictate here — and you know what? They don’t have a political agenda. They have a financial agenda . . . They have zero incentive to basically tell the management teams running these businesses to go and drill more wells.”

Trump also offered to meet Putin in hopes of getting a deal to end the war — one of the new president’s key promises.

The Kremlin isn't interested, unfortunately: “We don’t see anything new here,” said Putin spox Dmitry Peskov on Thursday, in reference to Trump’s threats a day earlier to tighten sanctions on Russia even further.

Trump v the Fed: The president again urged Fed chairman Jay Powell to lower interest rates. “I think I know interest rates much better than they do, and I think I know them certainly much better than the one who’s primarily in charge of making that decision,” Trump said. Context: Powell has already said he will ignore Trump.

Assassination files: The government’s thus-far unreleased documents on the killings of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., will all be released, Trump ordered.

From Fortune

The state of shortselling
Famous shortseller Nathan Anderson announced last week that he was closing Hindenburg Research, his firm. With commentary from high-profile short-seller Andrew Left, who’s currently under indictment for market manipulation related to his short-selling, Fortune’s Leo Schwartz investigates the criminal and civil pressures that now circle the industry. 

Nike’s new leader
Newly appointed Nike CEO Elliott Hill, who started out at the company as an intern, is tasked with pulling the brand out of a sales and innovation slump. He sat down with Fortune to describe how he plans to pivot away from an emphasis on e-commerce and bring back an “obsession with sport.” Fortune

Trump accuses BofA of debanking conservatives
President Donald Trump accused Bank of America of refusing to serve conservative customers during a conversation between him and BofA CEO Brian Moynihan at Davos on Thursday. Trump also lodged the same claim at JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, though both banks denied the claims in separate statements to Fortune.

The markets

• Stocks hit a new all-time high. The S&P 500 popped up 0.5% in late trading to hit 6,118.71. All the major U.S. indexes are now above or near their ATHs. Equities were boosted by inflation data that came in low, and Trump’s tariffs being not as bad as expected. The bad news? Maybe stocks are too high. The equity vs risk premium is now so bad it’s back where it was in the dotcom bust of 2002. U.S. futures contracts indicated investors foresee a little bit of profit-taking, before the opening bell.

From the analysts

• Goldman Sachs on global bonds: “As US yields move higher across the curve, other bond markets – especially the UK and Europe – are digesting higher yields predominantly via higher duration risk premium. Over a multi-year period, the drivers of higher EUR and GBP term premium and inflation risk are unlikely to reverse significantly. In particular, the decline in the correlation between growth and inflation following a series of supply shocks is consistent with a higher inflation risk premium,” say George Cole and Friedrich Schaper in a note to clients.
• Wedbush on Palantir: “We believe Palantir has a path to become the next Oracle or Salesforce over the coming years and while the valuation is expensive today we see the Messi of AI as a core winner in the trillions of AI spend over the next few years,” Daniel Ives says.
• Wedbush on Apple: “... there will be bumps in the road as Apple heads down the AI path but ultimately 2025 is a fork in the road year for Cook and Cupertino to prove the doubters wrong. It's about the strongest and biggest consumer installed base in the world and ultimately the consumer AI Revolution will go through the walls of Apple and that is fundamentally why we believe this is a buying opportunity rather than a time to head for the hills on Apple's stock,” Ives enthused.

AROUND THE WATERCOOLER

WPP CEO Mark Read dreams of ‘getting closer’ to the U.S. amid workforce anger over RTO mandate by Prarthana Prakash

Elon Musk takes on his biggest challenge yet: Getting rid of the penny by Greg McKenna

DEI advocates respond to Trump’s latest moves to destroy diversity policies: ‘This is a marathon, not a sprint’ by Sara Braun

Cathie Wood says she won’t buy the Trump memecoin because it ‘isn’t going to have any utility’ by Sydney Lake

JPMorgan Chase workers grouse over measly bonuses, 2% pay bumps as bank reels in record $58.5 billion in profits by Luisa Beltran

Elizabeth Warren sent Elon Musk 30 ideas for how DOGE can cut U.S. spending by Beatrice Nolan

This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Joey Abrams and Jim Edwards.