DAVOS, Switzerland — Eight years ago, Davos Man mocked Donald Trump. Five years ago, he despised Trump. But in 2025, the mood at the World Economic Forum has completely changed.
The great American vibe shift has made it to Davos, and the European business elite badly wants a piece of it. Two days of trudging up and down the Promenade—the main drag of the Swiss ski resort town where the WEF is held each year—were enough to convince me of that.
True, the WEF propaganda remains fixated on Environmental, Social, and Governance issues, and, of course, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—the familiar, woke-globalist acronyms ESG and DEI, now supplemented with AI. The corporate billboards still burble their word salads about resilience and sustainability. But talk to the chief executives and a very different picture emerges.