Trump drafts America's business titans to burnish his image at home and abroad

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump isn't the only one who wrapped up a Middle East tour in recent days. A private jet carrying Nvidia's CEO trailed Air Force One across the region. Oil executives and bankers followed, too, as American executives dropped everything — canceling longstanding obligations and zooming into board meetings back home — to cozy up to Trump and bolster the image he tried to sell on his first major foreign trip.

With Trump back in the White House, a jaunt with the president or a stop in the Oval Office is now as routine for America's business leaders as a speech to an industry conference.

Corporate titans are spending more time than ever working to curry favor with the administration as part of their effort to score relief from regulations — and tariffs — from the transactional president. He, in turn, is happy to use them as supporting cast members as he tries to project the economy as booming at a time when growth is slowing.

But putting in time with the U.S. president has not fully insulated companies such as Apple, Amazon, Walmart and others from Trump's anger. It's a sign that the public commitments they make to create U.S. jobs may be doing more to burnish the president's image than to protect their own profitability.

In private, CEOs and executives on Trump’s trip marveled at how they came to be unofficial members of the president's traveling party, their private jets hopscotching across the Gulf as Trump visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. They said they had little choice but to get close to Trump, especially as he wields his tariff powers.

“I’m just thinking we have a president of the United States doing the selling,” Trump said in Abu Dhabi, standing alongside the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Tomislav Mihaljevic, and working in a dig at his presidential predecessor, Joe Biden. “You think Biden would be doing it? I don’t think so. But I think it's so important. I have to be a cheerleader for our country.”

The host countries and the White House pulled together business conferences in a matter of weeks to give Trump a stage to show off his dealmaking on the trip. Business leaders signed partnership agreements and touted mutual investments almost as a performance for Trump and the region's powerful ruling elites, while using the opportunity to network and share their mutual bemusement that this was now part of their job portfolio.

Trump has demonstrated that he steers business to those who ingratiate themselves to him — look no further than his promotion of Elon Musk’s Tesla — and punishes those who don’t, like Amazon during Trump’s first term and law firms, universities and a growing list of institutions in his second.

“He wants the vanity of people coming in to kiss his ring,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, CEO of Yale University’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute. He said the behavior by CEOs, while obsequious, often resulted in better treatment and free publicity from the government.

It's not just U.S. business people paying heed. On Monday, a French executive turned up in the Oval Office with Trump.

The president thanked Bernard Arnault's French luxury company LVMH for the “Medals of Sacrifice” made by its subsidiary, Tiffany & Co., as Trump presented them to the families of three sheriff’s deputies from Palm Beach County, Florida, who were killed in the line of duty.

LVMH stock has fallen this year as tariffs threaten a business that sells everything from designer handbags to champagne. But Trump had only the fondest of praise as he told Arnault's son, Alexandre, who was representing the company: "Thank you very much, Alexandre. I appreciate that you came. He came all the way from France."

Compared to the Biden administration, CEOs and executives at America's most powerful companies have felt obligated to stay in frequent contact with Trump's team. But the contact isn't a guarantee of meaningful influence with the president.

Executives at multiple companies, insisting on anonymity to describe private interactions, said it wasn't always clear who in Trump's orbit could best relay their views on tariffs, regulations and taxes to the president. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has emerged as their preferred go-between, but that hasn't completely immunized the companies from attacks by Trump.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon had a previously scheduled call on Saturday with Bessent, only to separately become the target of Trump's ire in a social media post in which the president said America's largest retailer should “eat” the cost of his tariffs.

Trump in April called Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who had attended his inaugural, after a report that the online outlet was considering displaying on product listings the impact of Trump's tariffs on prices. Amazon had explored the possibility for its Amazon Haul service, which competes against China-founded discounters Temu and Shein, but had chosen not to do so.

The heads of General Motors, Ford and Stellantis met with Trump to outline how his tariffs would disrupt automaking. Trump gave them some reprieves on domestic vehicles with foreign parts not covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, but he still has a 25% tax on imported steel and aluminum.

The president portrayed his tariff changes last April as a temporary bridge so that automakers would increase production domestically.

“We just wanted to help them during this little transition, short term,” Trump said at the time. “We didn’t want to penalize them. ”

Trump repeatedly praised Apple after its $500 billion commitment for investments in the United States. But the company also plans to shift more iPhone production to India in response to the China tariffs — and that has frustrated Trump.

Speaking in Qatar, Trump recalled a conversation with Apple CEO Tim Cook: “I said to him: ‘My friend, I treated you very good. You’re coming here with $500 billion, but now I hear you’re building all over India. I don’t want you building in India.'”

By contrast, JP Morgan Chase CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon ended up influencing Trump's tariff policies by going on TV.

The banker on April 9 was interviewed on Fox Business Network's “Mornings with Maria" as financial markets were panicking because of Trump's tariffs. Dimon said markets would improve if Trump could negotiate trade agreements.

“Take a deep breath," Dimon said. "Negotiate some trade deals. That's the best thing they can do.”

His statements resonated with Trump, who pulled back his tariffs later that day to a baseline 10% so that negotiations could occur for 90 days.

Trump later recounted, “I watched Jamie Dimon on Maria Bartiromo’s show this morning, and he was very good."