What Trump’s public scolding of Bank of America’s CEO was really about

The point of Donald Trump’s jab at Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan was not just to dunk on one prominent financier. It was also a warning to every executive at Davos, and everyone watching the livestream around the world, that any slight — real or imagined — against his base won’t be tolerated.

In case any corporate executives were sitting around this week wondering what the next four years might look like, a pretty telling moment at Davos should offer them a sense of what it means to do business in the era of Trump 2.0. ICYMI: Davos, aka the annual World Economic Forum confab in the Swiss Alps, brings together the world’s leading figures in business, tech, investing and economics. (Think long days of academic panels followed by chummy cocktails and steak and the most elite corporate scuttlebutt on the planet.) Naturally, President Donald Trump’s keynote — he video-conferenced from Washington — was well attended. But it wasn’t Trump’s vision for lower corporate taxes or tariffs that dominated Thursday’s happy hour, according to the New York Times’ Lauren Hirsch. Instead, the chatter centered on Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America, who thought he was teeing up a softball for the president but soon found himself in Trump’s crosshairs. What happened next was a public berating of one of the most powerful financiers in the world — a warning shot to the private sector, direct from Trump’s mouth: The administration won’t stand for “woke” ideology in the ranks of the federal government, and companies had better get on board, too. During a Q&A session, Trump touted his plans to reduce inflation before abruptly shifting the focus back to Moynihan. “You’ve done a fantastic job, but I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank,” Trump said. “You and Jamie and everybody… What you’re doing is wrong.”