Andrew here. I\u2019m headed to Davos, Switzerland, this weekend for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. We\u2019ll be bringing you all the news on the ground next week with my colleagues at The Times.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s going to be a decidedly different Davos this year, in part because Larry Fink has become the interim co-chair of the forum \u2014 and its de facto mayor, in place of the event\u2019s founder, Klaus Schwab. Fink has used his influence to help attract a cast of high-profile names, including President Trump, and will be onstage multiple times throughout the week, interviewing and being interviewed. (Fink happens to be on a panel I\u2019m moderating.)<\/p>\n
Our coverage from Davos begins on Tuesday. We\u2019ll be off on Monday, with the markets closed for Martin Luther King\u2019s Birthday. <\/p>\n
BlackRock\u2019s clout <\/p>\n
For decades, the hierarchy of the World Economic Forum was clear: There were the heads of state, the billionaires, the hangers-on and, above them all, Klaus Schwab. He was \u201cthe Professor,\u201d the founder, the man who could summon kings and captains of industry with a letter.<\/p>\n
But when the private jets descend into Switzerland next week, the man who put Davos on the map will be conspicuously absent following an internal investigation into W.E.F.\u2019s workplace culture. (The forum\u2019s board later cleared Schwab of wrongdoing<\/a>.) After his resignation<\/a> from W.E.F. last April \u2014 and the board\u2019s appointment of new leadership in August \u2014 this is no longer his party.<\/p>\n Welcome to Larry Fink\u2019s Davos.<\/p>\n Fink, the chairman and C.E.O. of BlackRock, has officially taken the reins as interim co-chair of the forum\u2019s board of trustees, alongside Roche\u2019s Andr\u00e9 Hoffmann.<\/p>\n The entire W.E.F. board hit the phones to help elevate this year\u2019s event, given the importance of the first confab in the post-Schwab era. But make no mistake: In the eyes of the Wall Street and Washington power brokers heading to Davos this year, Fink has become a quiet force reshaping the forum.<\/p>\n The clearest evidence of this new era is the guest list. For months, the big question was whether President Trump would attend. He is coming. And by many accounts, it was Fink who helped close the deal. The relevance of Davos has been questioned<\/a> in recent years. But Trump\u2019s presence guarantees that the world\u2019s attention will be focused on the event.<\/p>\n Fink\u2019s contacts has been equally effective in tapping into Silicon Valley. One of the most notable figures set to attend this year is Jensen Huang, the C.E.O. of Nvidia. Huang has never before attended Davos. But the founder of the A.I. chip maker is arguably the most important C.E.O. in the world right now. And Fink plans to conduct the keynote interview with Huang himself. Fink also persuaded Ken Griffin, the founder of the hedge fund giant Citadel, to return to Davos after a 15-year absence.<\/p>\n One other big change: While many corporate leaders previously competed to not spend time at the event\u2019s open panels, favoring private meetings, Fink & Co. pushed a number of them to appear on public stages. Jamie Dimon, who had long eschewed official Davos stage interviews, will appear for the first time in years. And Satya Nadella, Microsoft\u2019s C.E.O., will be in conversation with, well, Fink.<\/p>\n The W.E.F. itself flexed about this year\u2019s robust guest list, touting that \u201ca record 400 top political leaders, including close to 65 heads of state and government \u2014 with six G7 leaders expected \u2014 nearly 850 of the world\u2019s top C.E.O.s and chairs, and almost 100 leading unicorns and technology pioneers will convene in Davos-Klosters for one of the highest-level gatherings in the Annual Meeting\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of Fink\u2019s influence comes from BlackRock\u2019s size. The firm now manages $14 trillion in assets<\/a>. BlackRock\u2019s status as a big shareholder of most major public companies means that when Fink calls, C.E.O.s are likely to pick up the phone.<\/p>\n Fink had been one of Wall Street\u2019s most vocal supporters in pushing companies to embrace stakeholder capitalism and climate protections \u2014 issues that were core Davos themes, but which have lost favor in the business community amid a wider conservative backlash.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear how many years the \u201cFink-ification\u201d of Davos will last. His role is considered interim, and the widely held expectation is that the board would like to hire Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, to run the W.E.F. when her term expires near the end of 2027.<\/p>\n HERE\u2019S WHAT\u2019S HAPPENING <\/p>\n The U.S. strikes a trade deal with Taiwan, with huge investment pledges. In exchange for Washington lowering a tariff rate to 15 percent from 20 percent, Taiwanese companies have committed to invest $250 billion<\/a> in semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. (And Taipei will provide another $250 billion in credit guarantees to smaller companies to expand there.) But some Taiwanese people are worried it may hollow out the island\u2019s key industry.<\/p>\n Paramount\u2019s lawsuit against Warner Bros. Discovery won\u2019t be sped up. A Delaware judge said that Paramount, which wants to force the Warner Bros. Discovery board to disclose more information about the media company\u2019s planned sale to Netflix, hadn\u2019t proved<\/a> it would suffer \u201cirreparable harm\u201d from the current state of play. <\/p>\n The mother of one of Elon Musk\u2019s children sues xAI over deepfake images. Ashley St. Clair<\/a>, a conservative influencer, accused the artificial intelligence company\u2019s chatbot, Grok, of illicitly letting users digitally undress her without her consent. Separately, Canada<\/a> and Japan<\/a> are the latest governments to investigate xAI over the feature, which the company recently barred<\/a> in jurisdictions where such activity was illegal.<\/p>\n The pay-for-power campaign<\/p>\n As part of a focus on easing America\u2019s affordability crunch, which is expected to be a major issue in midterm elections<\/a> this year, Washington has taken aim at industries from credit card issuers<\/a> to pharmaceutical companies<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now joining that list is Big Tech, over the seemingly nonstop expansion of data centers meant to support their artificial intelligence ambitions. <\/p>\n The latest: Senator Chris Van Hollen<\/a>, Democrat of Maryland, introduced legislation on Thursday that would require tech giants to significantly subsidize any upgrades to electrical grids needed to power data centers.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we hope to do is create a national set of rules so that no matter where someone wants to build a data center, consumers know they are not going to get screwed with the costs,\u201d Van Hollen told The Times.<\/p>\n The numbers: American tech giants are expected to spend $1.2 trillion on A.I. infrastructure by 2030, according to a Bank of America report released on Thursday. That will place a huge burden on America\u2019s power grid \u2014 and increasingly on individual Americans\u2019<\/a> electricity bills<\/a>, a reality confirmed by this week\u2019s Consumer Price Index report<\/a>.<\/p>\n President Trump has also taken an interest in the issue. \u201cI never want Americans to pay higher Electricity bills because of Data Centers<\/a>,\u201d the president wrote on Truth Social this week.<\/p>\n He added that his administration had been working with Microsoft on the matter. The tech titan this week said it would \u201cpay our way<\/a> to ensure our datacenters don\u2019t increase your electricity prices.\u201d<\/p>\n The issue is especially acute in the Mid-Atlantic, where PJM Interconnection runs a 13-state electricity market that is the nation\u2019s largest \u2014 and whose grid has the most data centers in the country.<\/p>\n The White House and several governors are set to introduce a plan on Friday that would require PJM to hold a special auction for tech companies<\/a> to bid on new electricity contracts. It\u2019s intended to force such businesses to finance new power plants. A White House official told Bloomberg and The Times that an auction could raise as much as $15 billion.<\/p>\n (PJM itself appeared to have little to do with the move: A spokesman for the company said that \u201cwe were not invited to the event.\u201d)<\/p>\n The lobbying showdown over crypto legislation <\/p>\n A major crypto bill appeared headed for a big Senate committee vote \u2014 until late on Wednesday when one of the industry\u2019s biggest moguls, Brian Armstrong of Coinbase, publicly blasted the proposal as written. The legislation was quickly put on hold<\/a>.<\/p>\n The reversal put the spotlight on an escalating lobbying showdown between crypto and the trillion-dollar banking industry, Niko Gallogly reports.<\/p>\n Crypto and banking lobbyists have swarmed Washington in recent months, seeking to shape the landmark crypto legislation, which would provide a market structure to the industry.<\/p>\n High on Armstrong\u2019s list of complaints is a series of amendments that would limit so-called crypto rewards on stablecoins, the digital tokens tied to the value of the dollar.<\/p>\n (Armstrong also criticized what he described as potential limits to the powers of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which would be a leading crypto regulator, and a ban on so-called tokenized equities, though some companies that offer such instruments dispute that view<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Banks want the bill to quash stablecoin rewards. They argue that the payouts are a form of unregulated interest payments that could drain away billions in bank deposits. On Thursday, the American Bankers Association shared a petition<\/a> signed by thousands of members calling for a prohibition on such rewards and promoting the relative safety of banks.<\/p>\n Banks \u201cface a rigorous set of regulatory requirements in a whole host of areas that none of these companies face,\u201d said Jess Sharp, executive vice president of advocacy and innovation at the A.B.A.<\/p>\n The crypto industry\u2019s response? Banks are trying to limit competition.<\/p>\n Despite the setback, there is optimism that a compromise can be reached soon. \u201cSenators from both sides want to get back to the table, and we\u2019re ready to do our part,\u201d Coinbase\u2019s chief policy officer, Faryar Shirzad, told DealBook. <\/p>\n Talking A.I. with a C.E.O. of LexisNexis <\/p>\n Every week, we\u2019re asking a leader how he or she uses artificial intelligence. Sean Fitzpatrick, who leads the legal information business of LexisNexis North America, U.K. and Ireland, told DealBook he has set a productivity improvement goal for every manager. His answers have been condensed and edited.<\/p>\n How do you personally use A.I.?<\/p>\n I\u2019ll use it for ideation if I\u2019m entering a situation that I\u2019m not particularly familiar with. I was buying a car, and I was like, what are the things I should be asking?<\/p>\n Have you given any directives to your team about what you want them to do with A.I.?<\/p>\n What I tell all of my managers is I expect each of you to improve the productivity in your particular area by 10 percent this year using ChatGPT. It\u2019s a key performance objective.<\/p>\n We\u2019re seeing them do pretty amazing things. In engineering, about a third of our code now is written using A.I. And we\u2019re seeing about a 20 to 30 percent improvement in productivity in our engineering team as a result.<\/p>\n How easy is it to measure if the 10 percent improvement has been made?<\/p>\n It\u2019s not easy. We can definitely see if sales performance got 10 percent better or 20 percent better, but what\u2019s more difficult is the attribution part. How much of that was because of ChatGPT versus a price change? How much of it was because we made the product better?<\/p>\n THE SPEED READ <\/p>\n Deals<\/p>\n Two big shale oil and gas producers, Devon Energy and Coterra Energy<\/a>, are said to be in talks to combine; together, they have a market value of about $44 billion. (Reuters)<\/p>\n The first big deal for Venezuelan oil brokered by the U.S. went to the energy trading giant Vitol<\/a>, whose senior oil trader donated millions to President Trump\u2019s re-election campaign. (FT)<\/p>\n Politics, policy and regulation<\/p>\n New corporate tools from Anthropic<\/a> are reviving the fears of many software companies that the fast-growing artificial intelligence start-up might eat into their businesses. (Business Insider)<\/p>\n An Arizona mine that is the first new source of American copper in more than a decade has signed up a big customer \u2014 Amazon<\/a>, which needs the metal for its data centers. (WSJ)<\/p>\n Best of the rest<\/p>\n