Famed Yale business guru Jeffrey Sonnenfeld said America’s top tycoons are freaked out by Trump’s ‘Maoist’ MAGA movement — despite some executives’ ‘Dear Leader’ praise in public
It’s honestly a fascinating read. It’s fundamentally a PR piece, but the details (especially if you read between the lines) provide some interesting insights about how American oligarchs want to be viewed.
Difficult to make any educated speculation without direct access to the event (this is a PR piece first and foremost), but I get the impression there is an attempt to hedge their bets and avoid a scenario (even if it is low probability at this point) where they will have to go down with the ship.
Nearly three-quarters of CEOs surveyed said they were confident that U.S. free-market capitalism can compete with China’s socialist market economy in the global AI contest, and they expressed a near-unanimous discontent as the Trump administration has veered away from the capitalist system.
This is a particularly funny quote. America is not a free market model and China does not have a socialist market economy. Both are state capitalist countries with China being more centralised via the CCP and America allowing a measure decentralisation for oligarchs.
Source article:
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/
It’s honestly a fascinating read. It’s fundamentally a PR piece, but the details (especially if you read between the lines) provide some interesting insights about how American oligarchs want to be viewed.
Difficult to make any educated speculation without direct access to the event (this is a PR piece first and foremost), but I get the impression there is an attempt to hedge their bets and avoid a scenario (even if it is low probability at this point) where they will have to go down with the ship.
This is a particularly funny quote. America is not a free market model and China does not have a socialist market economy. Both are state capitalist countries with China being more centralised via the CCP and America allowing a measure decentralisation for oligarchs.
Depending on the metric they may be right. The free market model may be able to outcompete in producing useless garbage.
Outside of AI? I think there’s hardly any contest remaining.