Davos in the Donald Trump-era, Explained in 6 Charts
Here’s just a few ways that the 2018 Davos gathering will break new ground.
(Bloomberg) -- In many ways, next week’s World Economic Forum annual meeting in the Swiss alpine town of Davos is no different from previous confabs: a nearly week-long opportunity for the global rich and powerful to mingle and swap big ideas. Then again, there’ll be a certain tweeter-in-chief in attendance, not to mention the largest Chinese group to date and the first all-female slate of co-chairs.
Here’s just a few ways that the 2018 Davos gathering will break new ground.
Trump Effect
The White House surprised the world when it announced on Jan. 9 that Donald Trump would be attending Davos, which could easily be mistaken for an annual get-together of the same establishment elite he’s so vigorously railed against. While Trump won’t be the first sitting U.S. president to attend the WEF – Bill Clinton went in 2000, for instance – his presence will likely dominate the proceedings and ruffle some feathers, especially among participants whose countries have been targeted by Trump’s tweets.
Balance of Power
China plans to send at least 111 politicians, business leaders and other representatives this year. That’s up from 84 last year and fewer than 30 a decade ago. While still a fraction of the 800-plus U.S. roster, the Chinese surge, as with India and Russia, shows a relative shift away from the Western nations that have traditionally dominated Davos in favor of a faster growing and more assertive developing world.
Gender Gap
As the #MeToo movement sweeps across Hollywood, the media industry and Congress, the issues of sexual harassment and gender imbalances will be discussed on the panels and in the corridors of Davos. Those topics may also have been on organizers’ minds as they went about recruiting co-chairs for the event, considering that 2018 is the first time ever that all are women.
2018 Worries
For the second year in a row, extreme weather events were seen as the most likely global risk in the WEF’s annual survey, followed by natural disasters, both of which were also deemed the largest-impact risks behind only weapons of mass destruction. After climate-related challenges, it appears that technological risks are keeping business and world leaders up at night, namely possible cyber attacks as well as data fraud or theft.
Happy Birthday
Klaus Schwab, an economist who founded the WEF (then called the European Management Forum) in 1971, this year will celebrate his 80th birthday. Over almost five decades, Schwab has transformed the Forum from an initial meeting of just 450 people that turned a 25,000 Swiss-franc profit to a gargantuan influence magnet that last fiscal year brought in 280 million Swiss francs to his organization.
Money Talks
While Schwab and the WEF organizers have hosted a steady stream of presidents, prime ministers and monarch over the years, Davos is also awash with dozens of the planet’s richest and most powerful people from the world of business. A look at the preliminary schedule reveals at least four names listed on the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, including Russia’s richest man, as well as more than two dozen executives at publicly traded companies. They were collectively paid over $300 million in annual compensation, according to filings for the last two fiscal years.
— Edited by Anne Swardson
--With assistance from Zoe Schneeweiss
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anne Swardson at aswardson@bloomberg.net.
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.