- In today’s CEO Daily: Edelman CEO Richard Edelman, Nikki Haley, Microsoft’s Brad Smith, Suntory’s Takeshi Niinami, and Heineken’s Dolf van den Brink on the collapse of trust.
- The big story: Trump in action.
- The markets: Mostly up.
- Analyst notes from Apollo, Wedbush, and Convera.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. Donald Trump officially became president again yesterday, signing a staggering number of executive orders while surrounded by guests who together have a personal net worth of about a trillion dollars. It was either a dark day or a bright new dawn for America, depending on which TV network you watched. As Trump noted in his speech: “Our government confronts a crisis of trust.”
Indeed, in Davos this morning, we had a thought-provoking debate on rebuilding trust in governments, business leaders, and the media, which has devolved to the point where people feel angry, alienated and willing to drive change by almost any means possible, according to the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer.
“Grievance makes society dysfunctional,” said Edelman CEO Richard Edelman, who argued that restoring economic optimism is critical for addressing the “zero-sum mentality” among respondents. “You’ve got to do something.” (Here’s what he wrote in an opinion piece published last week in Fortune.)
Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell led the discussion. Some highlights:
Nikki Haley, who ran against Trump for the Republican nomination and is now vice-chair of Edelman, argued that “it’s a good thing that tech CEOs are getting involved with government” because “government breaks more than it fixes.” Added Haley: “Allow innovators to innovate … I don’t think governments need to heavily regulate this.”
Microsoft President Brad Smith argued that shrinking working-age populations in industrialized countries have created a “desperate need” for productivity growth and the need to “deliver skilling at scale.” Added Smith: “People need to feel heard; they need to be understood … They need leaders in institutions to acknowledge what we might have done … We need to underpromise and overdeliver.”
Suntory Holdings CEO Takeshi Niinami noted that trust scores were especially low among young people in Japan. “People in their 60s and 70s have a lot of social benefits but what about the younger generation?” He called on leaders to emphasize growing wages over dividends and invest in people. “The current greedy capitalism should be replaced.”
Heineken chief Dolf van den Brink argued that there’s “already a shift happening between labor and companies” that’s leading to increased salaries, at least in his company. “We better start addressing this systemically. The most important word that comes to mind is hope. We need to restore hope. We need to bring economic optimism back.”
That’s especially true for Gen Z, a group that grew up with technology and now trusts bots as much or more than institutions. As Gillian Tett, a Financial Times columnist and provost at King’s College, Cambridge said, “I see these Gen Z creatures every day. The one thing that Gen Z does trust is its own tribe and its peer-group online … Gen Z has stopped trusting institutional leaders. Gen Z is looking to its peer group online for validation for what is or is not true.”
More news below.
Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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