Behind Closed Doors, Our Top CEOs Say Trump is Bad For Business And it’s Time to Make America into America Again

https://fortune.com/2025/09/21/behind-closed-doors-ceos-say-trump-is-bad-for-business-and-its-time-to-make-america-into-america-again/

39 comments

  1. As per the original article:

    BY JEFFREY SONNENFELD & STEPHEN HENRIQUES:

    *Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is Lester Crown Professor of Leadership Practice at the Yale School of Management and founder of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. A leadership and governance scholar, he created the world’s first school for incumbent CEOs and he has advised five U.S. presidents across political parties.
    Stephen Henriques is a senior research fellow of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. He was a consultant at McKinsey & Company and a policy analyst for the governor of Connecticut.*

    We just hosted a large gathering of top CEOs, primarily Republicans, and you might be surprised by what we heard. While many of them have been willing to support the president out of patriotic duty—and dismay over some Democratic policies—they are increasingly questioning who truly stands to benefit from the maelstrom of chaos, fear, and confusion that he has intentionally created.

    The Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute’s CEO forum gathers top political leaders with Fortune 500 CEOs for a Chatham House rules discussion where direct quotes are off the record. In Washington DC this week at the 155th gathering, as clouds swirled around the Capitol building just steps away, senators from both parties and some top Trump administration officials joined us. They had to face down the near unanimous verdict from over 100 top business leaders, representing some of the world’s largest companies and most iconic brands: Trump’s policies aren’t working. These opinions were all about business results, by the way: the reasoning was independent of personal politics or industry sector, it always came back to the bottom line.

    Business leaders at our forum worry that Trump is undermining an economic system that took decades to build and has long benefited the U.S. more than any other country, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, all for short-term gains. They see what’s happening as a hollowing out of U.S. economic foundations and institutions. In this free-to-speak environment (a loaded topic these days), they said that while they approve of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. and bolstering economic and national security, they fear for America’s international standing amid the degradation of national security at the FBI, the CIA, and the Pentagon.

    This widespread sentiment is directly counter to the heavily trumpeted “Dear Leader” tributes of just a handful of tech titans, who are decidedly not representative of the leadership class.

    Survey says

    Two-thirds of the CEOs surveyed at our event said that U.S. tariffs have been harmful to their businesses. They estimate that 80% of the tariffs have been shared equally between domestic firms and U.S. consumers, with the remainder shouldered by foreign counterparts. Businesses have attempted to limit the cost of tariffs from being passed on by rerouting supply chains, reworking operations, instituting hiring pauses, or administering large-scale layoffs. But they have limited options left as inventories built up before the tariffs took effect continue to be depleted.

    One CEO of a major U.S. manufacturing company explained to the group: “If the U.S. government wants to help protect certain industries, they need to help those industries be successful. It is not just putting a bunch of tariffs in place and assuming those industries are going to get moved to the U.S. There have to be incentives … Consumers want products to be low-cost … power tools, hand tools, clothing, sneakers … Does it really make sense to be manufacturing all that in the United States? I do not believe it does. I believe there are certain industries where it does make sense … but it is not realistic to expect every industry in the world to be manufacturing products in the U.S. for the U.S.”

    The leaders of Gap, Ford, Stanley Black & Decker, Nike, Conagra, Procter & Gamble, Home Depot, Best Buy, Macy’s, Target, and Walmart are but a few of the many who have outlined similar dilemmas in recent public commentary. This is the perfect opportunity for the Business Roundtable to advocate for its members in a forceful, direct challenge to the administration, but it has been perplexingly muffled. As expected, inflation has increased, reversing the downward trend that Trump inherited from the Biden administration, and the labor market continues to weaken.

  2. So what top CEOs are saying is to make America ‘great’ again, how ironic.

  3. Maybe those CEO’s could stop saying it behind closed doors and just call out Orange Julius for what he is?

  4. All they need to do it pay up and tie him up in court forever. Lawsuits from every company. Send the message during shareholder announcements to expect losses due to the instability Trump has brought to our economy.

  5. Maybe they shouldn’t be performing felatio to the president in the Oval Office publicly anymore

  6. It always comes back to the bottom line.

    Greed. One of the seven deadly sins if you recall.

    Trump is bad for money. His deliberate antagonizations and unforeseen chaos destabilizes markets, makes planning difficult, and puts chilling effects on some investments.

    The greedy Republican CEOs just want their money and power, and Trump is fucking with that.

  7. So you’re saying that CEOs are as cowardly as they are greedy

  8. I think their talk now if born of fear. Not that their children will be doomed to live in a fascist US, but that their companies will eventually be targeted for nationalization by trump as “strategic assets”. One of many examples in Russia below.

    https://russiapost.info/economy/domodedovo

  9. Well they are the ones who have more free speech than the rest of us .🙄

    I only make 2400 free speeches per month, I can’t buy a congressperson. 😭

  10. Ignored the experts and facts, and still voted for Trumpcession 2.0. Fucked around, and are finding out.

  11. Do something then you pussies, our country is burning.

  13. Ah yes, the American CEO. The ones who would vote Republican to rather lose $1m in wealth than pay an extra $500k in taxes under a Democrat.

  14. How about stop saying it behind closed doors and start using your immense wealth to push the politicians who can actually bring him to heel to do something about it then? 

  15. They won’t do anything though. They worked hard and donated a lot of money to get him elected. Now they’ve discovered that an autocratic doesn’t actually need them anymore so they’re out in the cold.

    Even worse, they’re starting to realize that the US is not that far away from people who threaten the administration from flying out windows. I mean, they’re already blowing up random boats in international waters…

  17. Oligarchs. They want to go balls deep in fascism, then pull out just before the climax, to avoid having to deal with the consequences.

    The consequences of fascism tends to be the political rulers want more money, slip their reins, and start taking rich people’s assets (and potentially, heads). Then those rulers (and a few useful types) remain in a precarious and unstable balance of power.

    Guess some of the Non-Politician Wealthy class are starting to think the market has peaked, and it is time to sell.

    Let’s see how good they are at timing the market.

  18. This just in: man known for making terrible business decisions throughout his entire career now thought to be bad for business. More at 11.

  19. These headlines are infuriating. America’s richest people love trump because they are in cahoots with him. If the rich didnt like him he would be gone before we knew it.

  20. Are these the same closed doors they were behind when they donated obscene amounts of money to his campaign?

  21. I love the immense courage they are showing by saying this anonymously and quietly behind closed doors so that absolutely nobody takes it seriously and nothing can come of it. How about this- if you are in a position of power and have concerns- fucking say so! This cowardly tiptoeing is doing nothing but legitimizing Trumps Authority.

  22. They said as they wiped the President’s jizz from their lips.

  23. We’ve known he’s bad for business for a long time. These self-serving freaks aren’t going to do anything about it because it would cost them something

  24. Well open those doors up Tim Apple because you could’ve done a lot more to stop us getting to this point my guy

  25. Oh I’m sorry are the CEOs done playing Fascism now? They’ve had enough and the games too far?

    Oh, the humanity.

  26. It was those CEOs who paid to put Trump where he is. Let’s see now how much power they have.

  27. >you might be surprised by what we hear

    I’m not surprised at all.. multi Millionaires and billionaires who make that wealth by ‘being bold’ actually being too weak to say things on the record is not surprising at all.

  28. They’re the ones that bought his presidency. Maybe don’t do that for starters.

  30. These CEOs are differently complicit in getting Krasnov reelected. If normal folks weren’t suffering, I’d be glad that they’re suffering the logical consequence of that choice

  32. Don’t forget these same CEOs were cool with him getting a second term.

  33. Open the door, else you are nothing but cowards and traitors.

  34. Trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube now that corporate America squeezed out as much as it could.

  36. Well, our “top CEOs” shouldn’t have helped get him elected then….

  37. People keep forgetting that WE make or break corporations! Too often, I read defeatist comments on this platform. This week’s protests of Disney is a prime example. Outrage and cancellations have Mickey execs talking to Jimmy Kimmel. There are literally hundreds of millions of us. We need to wake up as a whole and realize we have more in common and life desires than we have differences. Moaning on social media platforms that “we’re doomed” is exactly what they want. The Right wants us to feel helpless and weak. Rolling over and declaring negativity serves NO ONE! When you hear or read comments throwing in the towel to the corrupt, authoritarian, vile, morally devoid MINORITY of our population, I implore you to speak up. Our strength is in numbers, and we can vote every day with our wallets. Corporations listen to falling profits! 💙❤️=💜

  38. The top CEOs are part of why we’re in this fucking mess. They care more about what’s bad for business than america falling to fascism. If they made more money they would embrace fascism wholeheartedly.

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