Davos updates: Trump rules out using force to acquire Greenland, calls for 'immediate negotiations' to get it

AI Czar David Sacks said he's concerned that overzealous federal or state regulations of AI will harm the US's standing in the global technology race.

"Where I kind of worry is that if in the AI race in a fit of pessimism, we do something like what Bernie Sanders wants, which is he wants to stop building all data centers or if we have 1,200 different AI laws in the states, you know, clamping down on the innovation, I worry we could lose the AI race because of a self-inflicted injury," Sacks told Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff during a fireside chat Wednesday at Davos.

Sacks said he hopes Americans and others in the West become "a little bit more optimistic about the industry as more and more miraculous products come out."

The Trump administration has stood resolutely behind its push for federal preemption of state AI laws, even as the policy divides some in the Republican Party. The GOP-led Congress was unable to pass such a policy into law. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in December that champions a federal framework for AI policy. Last month, Sacks wrote in a lengthy post on X that federal preemption "would not apply to generally applicable state laws" such as those designed to protect children from online predators.

Sanders recently told Business Insider that he plans on introducing his data center construction moratorium soon, though few notable progressive lawmakers have lined up behind the plan. A spokesperson for Sanders did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment.

Business leaders such as Ken Griffin and Matthew Prince have already weighed in on President Donald Trump's highly anticipated speech in Davos.

Speaking on CNBC's Squawk Box on Wednesday, Citadel CEO and founder Griffin said Trump had an "important message to deliver to a European audience that, bluntly, needs to do better. Europe's economic growth lags far behind America."

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"I thought it was a home run..." Sen. Lindsey Graham said of Trump's speech.

"Greenland's strategically important. We need the title, but not through force. We need to find a way to transfer the title to the United States. If we do, he goes all in for Greenland...The biggest loser of that speech might be Putin."

"Were you surprised that there was no applause throughout the whole speech?" — I asked California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a longtime Trump adversary whom the president took aim at in his speech.

"No. That was as predictable as the rest of the speech," he replied.

"Why would there be? He's insulted half the room. Why would you applaud someone that talks down to you and past you, who belittles you, who mocks you, who thinks you're weak and pathetic?"

"I was surprised there was as much applause as there was. Had there not been cell phones, I think a few people would have passed out from boredom. Thank God that cell phones were allowed in.

"90% of the room was on them after 10 minutes. It was deeply boring, often boorish, even by Trump standards."

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In a panel not long before Trump took the stage, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that, if enacted, the president's 10% cap on credit card interest rates could cause an "economic disaster."

He said that the move could strip credit from 80% of Americans, but that his bank would "deal with" whatever policy the government ends up enacting.

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There had been a lot of noise in the lead-up to President Donald Trump's address at the World Economic Forum, but inside the crowded auditorium, it was eerily silent for most of the hour-plus speech.

I was sitting among the 1,000 or so people in the Davos hall, some of whom were standing in packed aisles.

If Trump wanted a raucous applause for his laundry list of accomplishments that he sees as crowning achievements over his first year, he didn't get it.

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Following his Q&A with Brende, Trump briefly took questions in a media scrum outside the Congress Hall, where it was hard to discern individual questions from reporters.

Later, he is slated to give an interview to CNBC, which will air between 1 and 2 p.m. ET.

"We make the greatest weapons in the world, but now we're going to make them faster," Trump said during his address, before turning to his plans to cap compensation for defense execs.

"I put a cap on the salaries. Then I put no buybacks, no stock buybacks, no various other things that they were doing."

"If they're going to make those big salaries, they're going to have to produce a lot faster. The good news is we have the greatest equipment in the world. Now we're going to start making it a lot faster."

During his 70-minute-long speech, Trump once again backed a ban on institutional investors buying single-family homes.

"I'm taking action to bring back this bedrock of the American dream," he said. "Homes are built for people, not corporations."

"The United States is back, bigger, stronger, and better than ever before," Trump says.

"I'll see you all around," he concludes to muted applause.

He'll now take part in a discussion with WEF President Børge Brende.

His speech lasted roughly an hour and 10 minutes.

"Maybe I'll give you a quick story," Trump says, turning to tariffs placed on watches made in Davos' host country, Switzerland.

"They make beautiful watches, great watches, Rolex, all of them," he says.

"They were paying nothing to the United States when they sent their product. And we had a $41 billion deficit with this beautiful place.

"So I said, let's put a 30% tariff on them. So that we get back some of it," he adds.

"All hell broke loose."

Trump says he had talks with Swiss political leaders, during which he realised that "the United States is keeping the whole world afloat."

"We have an unbelievable future in that the stock market is going to be doubled. We're going to hit 50,000, and that stock market's going to double in a relatively short period of time because of everything that's happening," he says.

Trump tells the audience he is close to appointing a new Federal Reserve chairman, saying it is "somebody that's very respected."

"The problem is they change when they get the job," he adds.

Kevin Hassett and Kevin Warsh are considered the frontrunners to succeed current Fed chair Jerome Powell, whom Trump called "terrible" and nicknamed "Jerome 'Too late' Powell."

Trump elicits laughter from the Davos crowd by mentioning French President Emmanuel Macron's much-discussed aviator sunglasses.

"Those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened?"

Macron has worn sunglasses in public in recent days due to an eye problem.

Trump goes on to say he likes Macron, which he says is probably surprising to many people, before discussing tariffs on French wine and Champagne.

Earlier in the speech, Trump attacked what he called the "green new scam," taking particular aim at wind turbines, which he has long criticized.

"Because of my landslide election victory, the United States avoided the catastrophic energy collapse, which befell every European nation that pursued the green new scam, perhaps the greatest hoax in history," he said.

"The green new scam, windmills all over the place, destroy your land."

"China makes almost all of the windmills, and yet I haven't been able to find any wind farms in China. Did you ever think of that?

"That's a good way of looking at it. They're smart. China's very smart. They make them, they sell them for a fortune. They sell them to the stupid people who buy them, but they don't use them themselves."

Trump says he wants "right, title, and ownership" of Greenland, but rules out using force to get it.

"We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. I won't do that."

"That's probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force.

"I don't have to use force, I don't want to use force, I won't use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland."

Trump has moved on to the topic that everyone has been waiting for: Greenland.

He opens by joking that he didn't plan to discuss Greenland, but expected bad "reviews" if he ignored the elephant in the room.

"I have tremendous respect for both the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark," he says, calling it a "big beautiful piece of ice."

"The United States alone can defend this giant piece of ice," he adds, calling it a "core national security interest," and saying the US has been trying to acquire Greenland for "two centuries."

He calls for "immediate negotiations" about the US taking control of Greenland.

"We need it for strategic, national security, and international security."

As he took the stage, Trump first touted the policy achievements of the first year of his second term.

On DOGE and government cuts: "In 12 months, we have removed over 270,000 bureaucrats from the federal payrolls. The largest single-year reduction in government employment since the end of World War II."

"We've cut federal spending by $100 billion and slashed the federal budget deficit by 27% in the single year. "

On tariffs: "With tariffs, we've radically reduced our ballooning trade deficit, which was the largest in world history. We were losing more than $1 trillion every single year, and it was just wasted. It was going to waste. But in one year, I slashed our monthly trade deficit by a staggering 77% and all of this with no inflation, something everyone said could not be done."

On domestic manufacturing: "Domestic steel production is up by 300,000 tonnes a month, and it's doubling over the next four months. It's doubling and tripling. And we have steel plants being built all over the country."

"Factory construction is up by 41%, and that number is really going to skyrocket right now because that's during a process that they're putting in to get their approvals, and we've given very, very quick approvals. In the process, we've made historic trade deals with partners covering 40% of all US trade."

"Venezuela has been an amazing place for so many years, but then they went bad with their policies. We're helping them," he tells the Davos crowd.

"Venezuela is going to make more money in the next six months than they've made for years."

People stood in a long line to get through a pretty intense security check to get in.

"I love Europe, I want to see it do good, but it's not going in the right direction," Trump says, criticizing the continent's leadership.

Trump opens by thanking Fink, and telling the assembled viewers that he is surrounded by friends and "a few enemies."

He calls the US "the economic engine of the entire planet."

"When America booms, the entire world booms. It's been the history. When it goes bad, it goes bad. Y'all follow us down, and you follow us up."

Fink, the cochair of the World Economic Forum and the CEO of BlackRock, is making introductory remarks before the main show begins.

Cook is among scores of big figures from the business world in the audience waiting for Trump.

It's now 2:30 p.m. in Davos, and President Donald Trump's much-anticipated speech is due to start any time now. Still no sign of the president.

Ahead of Trump's speech, I've been walking around the Promenade trying to figure out a good spot to post up. I thought it'd be fun to watch from the Belgium House, which is serving Stella on tap. Belgium is one of a number of European countries threatened with fresh tariffs over its opposition to US control of Greenland.

I walked in and asked if they were planning to broadcast the address. The gentleman at the front desk gave a terse response. "No, we have so many sessions," he told me. "We have no time for that."

Congress Hall, which seats about 1,000 people, is quickly filling up before Trump addresses the World Economic Forum.

Outside the hall, CEOs, including Salesforce's Marc Benioff and Coinbase's Brian Armstrong, jockeyed alongside world leaders to get in. There was a quick bag check even though we had all been screened with metal detectors before entering the Congress Center.

Getting here required the highest level badge access, and the auditorium is segmented into different sections for trustees and VIPs. Given that, the audience might be more friendly than you might expect at Davos.

President Donald Trump has arrived in Davos. A red carpet was rolled out for him as Marine One touched down at the Davos heliport at 2:02 p.m. local time.

It traveled in a convoy of five helicopters in a roughly 40-minute journey from Zurich Airport. Trump's hugely anticipated speech is scheduled in under 30 minutes, so it could be a close call to start on time.

Trump is running about three hours late after Air Force One turned around, and he had to take a different plane instead.

Trump is due to speak in 30 minutes. We still haven't had official word on any potential delay to the speech.

Earlier today, Bill Gates said he wants to rate AI companies based on how much they help address global health issues.

"We fund a group that rates the various pharmaceutical companies in terms of their generosity to help out with global health issues," Gates said on a panel. "We'll probably do that for the AI companies at some point, so the ones that are doing a great job get the credit they deserve."

This comes as the Gates Foundation partnered with OpenAI on Wednesday for a $50 million pilot healthcare initiative called Horizon1000.

Gates said tech giants "do want to devote some of their resources to helping the world at large to show what AI can do."

Benioff was one of the few people being let in early.

"As a member of the WEF Board of Trustees, Marc was escorted to his saved seat for the Trump address today — just as he is for any major address," a Salesforce spokesperson told Business Insider.

Update, 4:55 p.m. CET: This has been updated to include comment from a Salesforce representative about Benioff being escorted to a saved seat.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was among the luminaries spotted waiting to get into Trump's speech.

President Donald Trump departed from Zurich Airport for Davos by helicopter, 44 minutes after his plane landed.

TV images showed Marine One took off at 1:19 p.m. local time, accompanied by four other helicopters.

The 75-mile journey to Davos should take roughly 30 minutes. Trump is due to speak at 2:30 p.m.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles were also pictured boarding the presidential helicopter. A convoy of black SUVs was also seen driving onto the tarmac, apparently to transport other passengers from the plane.

AI is changing what tech companies look for in new hires, and China's tech startup scene is no exception.

Yutong Zhang, president of the Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI, said she increasingly prioritizes learning ability, as she said knowledge and skills become outdated more quickly in an AI-driven economy.

"Every day we're feeling that the learning ability is [more] very important than the past experience because past experience and past knowledge may get expired sooner than before," Zhang told a Davos panel.

As AI tools can now generate expertise on demand, she said the value of narrow specialization is declining.

She said the education system should prioritize "general thinking" and "general knowledge," and build "learning abilities" and "AI proficiency," as her startup struggles to find "the right fit" among job candidates.

President Donald Trump has always had a showman's flair for conjuring attention and anticipation, and his Davos address is no different. No less than the future of NATO is at stake.

Outside the auditorium where Trump will speak this afternoon, attendees told me they had no idea what he would say, so they came here to find out, especially what he says about Greenland.

Several also mentioned they had never seen Trump speak in person since he appeared via video last year.

"I'm very curious," said one attendee.

"At least it will be entertaining," said another.

"I just want to see where his mind goes," said someone else.

Trump had to switch airplanes due to electrical issues, so part of the mystery is what time he will take the stage. Security guards cleared Congress Hall after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink wrapped up around noon.

While waiting to go back in to hear Trump, attendees, including financier Anthony Scaramucci and University of California chief investment officer, Jagdeep Singh Bachher, could be seen sipping coffee and eating saffron risotto Milanese.

A French journalist approached me to ask whether Trump's threats were real. I told her I didn't know.

Away from hype about Trump's arrival, Davos is still carrying on as normal.

On a panel this morning, Nvidia chief Jensen Huang described AI as the biggest infrastructure buildout in human history — and one he sees creating a jobs boom for those with the right skillset.

"It's wonderful that the jobs are related to tradecraft and we're going to have plumbers and electricians and construction and steelworkers," he said in a conversation with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

Huang said the US was seeing a "significant boom" in this area, with salaries nearly doubling in some cases. "So we're talking about six-figure salaries for people who are building chip factories or computer factories or AI factories, and we have a great shortage in that," added Huang.

"Everybody should be able to make a great living. You don't need to have a Ph.D. in computer science to do so."

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Trump touched down in Zurich at 12:35 p.m. local time after an eventful journey.

President Donald Trump's original airplane departed about 10 hours ago, but it turned around due to a "minor electrical issue." He has instead flown to Switzerland on a Boeing C-32A, which is typically used for the Vice President's Air Force Two.

His journey has taken over three hours longer than first expected. Now, there's another 75 miles to reach Davos, most likely by helicopter.

Congress Hall is now being cleared ahead of President Donald Trump's speech.

One security guard told me the speech would be on time despite the electrical problems on AF1, but we still haven't heard official word from WEF.

As Trump seeks Greenland, insisting that it's key for protection against Russia and China, his allies don't actually disagree with his security concerns. His methods are causing great tension among his allies, but they agree that the Arctic is an area of risk.

"I think President Trump is right. Other leaders in NATO are right. We need to defend the Arctic," as China and Russia increase their presence there, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in a Wednesday morning appearance at Davos.

"For the United States to stay safe, you need a safe Arctic, a safe Atlantic, and a safe Europe."

He described that as a process that's underway: "We are working on that, making sure that collectively we will defend the Arctic region."

Finland, one of the NATO member states in the Arctic, agreed, and President Alexander Stubb framed it as a chance to strengthen Arctic security within the alliance. He expects tensions with the US to de-escalate, "I think at the end of the day, we'll find an off-ramp on this."

After an electrical issue on Air Force One delayed the president overnight, a replacement plane, a Boeing C-32A, was scrambled into action to bring him to Europe.

As of around midday Swiss time, the jet, a modified Boeing 757 often used as Air Force Two, was still in the air, flying close to Paris and heading for Zurich airport, where it looks likely to land within the next hour.

If, like many high-profile World Economic Forum attendees, Trump travels by helicopter from Zurich airport, it would take about another 30 to 40 minutes to reach Davos.

That could put him in the Swiss Alps just before 1.30 p.m. CET, and he is scheduled to speak at 2:30 p.m. CET.

However, there will likely be further added time due to security and other preparations.

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In short, we don't exactly know.

No clear indication has been given of what the president plans to discuss in his special address to the Davos crowd. It seems highly likely, however, that his desire to make Greenland part of the USA, the diplomatic furore it has ignited, and new tariffs on Western allies, will be front and center.

Other topics he could touch on include his first year in office, the affordability crisis, and the rising deficit in the US.

Tuesday will go down as the day global financial markets finally started paying attention to Trump's Greenland threats. As Business Insider's Jennifer Sor noted yesterday, stocks tumbled in one of the worst days for the US market since April 2025. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq dropped more than 2%, while the Dow wasn't far behind, losing 1.8%.

Things are looking much calmer so far on Wednesday, with investors seemingly in a classic holding pattern ahead of the president's speech later. Futures for all three major US indexes are pointing to a slightly higher open, with expected gains of around 0.2%. In Europe, where markets are open, major indexes in the UK, France, and Germany are marginally lower, but little moved.

Futures for the S&P 500 VIX, a widely-watched measure of market volatility, are down around 2%.

President Donald Trump's hugely anticipated speech this afternoon is dominating the conversation at Davos, but due to an electrical issue with Air Force One overnight, the president is many hours behind schedule.

Trump was due to speak at 2:30 p.m. local time (8:30 a.m. ET), but according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, he's likely to be around three hours behind.

While we don't yet have any confirmation of a change in schedule, Bessent's timings would put Trump's speech at 5:30 p.m. local time (11:30 a.m. ET).

In a statement to Business Insider, the World Economic Forum said it is "in close contact with the US delegation and will provide an update should there be any changes to the President's schedule or related programme arrangements."

Business Insider is tracking the US military jet carrying Trump over the Atlantic closely, and we'll keep you updated on his progress.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, told the European Parliament that there has now been a "seismic" and "permanent" shift in the international order.

"And the sheer speed of change far outstrips anything we have seen in decades. We now live in a world defined by raw power — whether economic or military, technological or geopolitical," von der Leyen said in Strasbourg, France, hours before Trump's big Davos speech.

"And while many of us may not like it, we must deal with the world as it is now," she said.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is the latest to push back on the idea that the AI boom is destined to pop like past manias.

"I think there will be big failures, but I don't think we are in a bubble," Fink said on a panel on Wednesday morning.

Fink's comments came amid a broader debate about whether massive investments in AI are sending the stock markets into a bubble.

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Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said Russia's economy has started to "flash red." He cited agreement among many economists that it "will have resources to continue for at least 12 months or more."

It's not that Russia doesn't have the resources to continue its war after that point. However, it will have much harder decisions to make, "painful choices" like cutting spending on infrastructure and healthcare.

"It's clear that this era of maintaining stability and funding a very costly war is over," Gabuev said.

Moldovan Prime Minister Alexandru Munteanu said at the same panel that the Russian economy's "expansionist model" is unsustainable in the long term.

"It's not the question whether it's going to collapse, it's the question when it's going to happen," Munteanu said.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had something to say about Denmark ahead of Trump's arrival.

"Denmark's investment in US Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant," Bessent told reporters at a morning press conference.

He was responding to a Tuesday announcement from the Danish pension fund AkademikerPension that it would sell $100 million in US Treasurys.

"They've been selling Treasurys for years, I'm not concerned at all," Bessent said.

Newsom has been swinging around Davos, almost as a Democratic counterweight to Trump.

"He is here hobnobbing with the global elite while his California citizens are still homeless. Shame on him. He is too smug, too self-absorbed, and too economically illiterate to know anything," Bessent said of Newsom.

Newsom on Tuesday evening had made an X post calling Bessent a "smug man" who's "out of touch."

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said at a panel on Wednesday morning that he thinks "we need to spend more money to make sure that we're competing properly against China."

There are two big factors at play here, Fink said. The first: Can the West grow economies fast enough to overcome deficits?

"That can be one big issue, especially with the rising deficits of the US," Fink said.

Secondly, another limiting factor is whether Western economies can make a J-curve of demand happen for AI and other technologies.

"The key to that is making sure that the demand only comes if technology is diffused for more applications, more utilizations," Fink said. "If technology is just the domain of the six hyperscalers, we will fail."

Tax us — that's the message from nearly 400 wealthy people, who've signed an open letter addressed to the leaders gathering at Davos.

The letter's co-signees called out a "handful of global oligarchs with extreme wealth," accusing them of harming society as a whole across governance, tech, innovation, and the environment.

The solution, per the letter, comes down to one thing — taxing the superrich.

Signatories include the actor Mark Ruffalo, film producer and activist Abigail Disney, and musician Brian Eno.

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"I believe President Trump is going to be about 3 hours late," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at a morning presser. "I haven't seen the updated schedule."

ICYMI: Trump had to switch planes after an electrical fault was detected on board Air Force One.

David Steinbach, Hines' global chief investment officer, didn't mince words when describing the overall real-estate environment.

"It's been a really bad few years, honestly," Steinbach told me. "Really beginning in 2022."

Rising geopolitical tensions and the siloing of regions can make the environment even trickier. Especially for a company with over $90 billion of assets across 30 countries. Still, Steinbach told me that Hines raised about 50% more discretionary capital year over year in 2025.

"There's a risk and opportunity, right? The risk is it's now different. And that's probably not changing anytime soon," Steinbach said. "The opportunity is a lot needs to be built now, because you've got supply chains that need to get re-looked. You got very directive investments in-country."

"That's creating a lot of demand as well," Steinbach added.

On the schedule for Wednesday: Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.

Trump ran into some travel trouble en route to Davos late Tuesday. He was forced to switch from Air Force One to a backup plane after an electrical fault was detected on board. Flight maps show Air Force One making a U-turn over the waters off Long Island, then landing back in Washington, D.C.

The president is now back on the road and on his way to Switzerland.

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The police in Zurich deployed a water cannon after anti-Trump protests got chaotic, according to multiple reports from local media outlets.

Videos from the scene showed protesters holding up banners, including one that read: "TRUMP NOT WELCOME."

Zurich is a two-hour drive from Davos. It's likely that the president will face much less resistance at the ski resort, where executives are clamoring to meet him.