DAVOS, Switzerland—President Trump video-conferenced into the World Economic Forum a year ago demanding lower interest rates from the global elites gathered and threatening tariffs against those making products anywhere but America.
This year, he is heading in person to the Alpine summit with an entourage of U.S. officials against a backdrop of a world in flux, in large part because of his own unconventional actions at home and abroad. Suddenly, an event once dismissed as a talking shop for executives who think they can solve the world’s problems has become a must-attend gathering that people are eager to attend.
Trump is expected to address the confab in person for the first time in six years. Secretary of State Marco Rubio , Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent , Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and special envoy Steve Witkoff also help make up what is likely to be the biggest U.S. delegation in years, World Economic Forum Chief Executive Børge Brende said.
This year’s gathering “is taking place against the most complex geopolitical backdrop since 1945,” Brende said on a media call before the event.
The official agenda features topics such as innovation, economic growth and “building prosperity within planetary boundaries,” a phrase referring to discussions about how to achieve growth while still protecting the climate. But conversations are expected to be dominated by the Trump administration’s moves, from its calls to take control of Greenland to tariffs and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro .
“There has always been a big elephant in the room that people had to dance around [at Davos] and now the U.S. is the big elephant in the room,” said David Kenny , an independent director and former CEO of Nielsen, who is attending his 24th Davos summit this year. Continuing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza are also top of mind for world leaders.
Trump plans to use the forum to address at least one of his domestic priorities. He said in a post on Truth Social that he intends to discuss new housing and affordability proposals in his Davos speech. He recently said he plans to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes.
The U.S. delegation is expected to take over a late-19th-century church turned convening space perched in the center of a frosty mountainside promenade. USA House, whose walls bear insignias celebrating America’s 250th anniversary, is expected to be a hub of activity for meetings and other events.
Initially, USA House planned to feature administration officials on Wednesday and Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter, but now with so many U.S. officials likely to be on the ground, the programming has stretched to a week of sessions with the U.S. delegation.
Scammers have attempted to sell “VIP passes” to the venue. Organizers this weekend posted a warning on the USA House website noting the volume of inbound queries this year “suggests that these fake VIP passes may be the fastest selling fiction about Davos since Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain.”
Trump’s planned trip to the World Economic Forum has rippled through the week’s festivities, from the programming to the security arrangements and ID badges.
Thomas Crampton , a longtime Davos attendee, said he has been offered hotel badges for 1,200 Swiss francs, equivalent to about $1,500, up from the actual cost of 165 francs. With hotels and apartments scarce, some attendees are preparing to put mattresses in the backrooms of shops or in hotel gyms, he said.
The “off-the-charts” interest in Davos this year, he said, reflects the state of confusion in the world. “At times of uncertainty, people look for ways to find out information, and they seek connection and to understand things,” said Crampton, who is founder and CEO of Narrative Alpha, a firm that helps venture capitalists and entrepreneurs raise capital. “There is just a great hunger to know which way the world is going.”
Jonas Prising , CEO of staffing company ManpowerGroup , who has attended Davos for roughly 17 years, said he expected trade and the state of global alliances to be among the top issues discussed throughout the week.
“Despite this question that has been debated in the past—irrelevance and global elites and all of that—given everything that’s happening, I think there’s a great interest in the meeting,” he said. The big question is: How can we navigate this, both as nations, as regions, as organizations?”
In the past, the WEF’s annual meeting has played a major role in launching and shaping global initiatives, including some that the U.S. has distanced itself from under Trump’s leadership. Among them is Gavi, an international alliance that helps children in poorer countries receive vaccines. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said last year that the U.S. would stop funding the program .
The secluded Alpine village of Davos has hosted the World Economic Forum since 1971, attracting world leaders, billionaires and celebrities to what has become an extravagant schmooze-fest.
Because of a lack of meeting spaces in town, companies take over stores, restaurants and even doctors’ offices near the main promenade to build makeshift offices. A Hilton Garden Inn is an unusual power center, prized for its location; Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Apple CEO Tim Cook have been spotted there in prior years. Sidewalks ice over, toilets are tough to come by and numerous security checkpoints mean attendees seem to be constantly—yet carefully—rushing, or waiting in lines.
Among the 3,000 expected participants this year are 850 CEOs and chairs of the world’s top companies, organizers said. More than 60 heads of state and government, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky , will join business leaders including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella , JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang .
Trump “is resetting the world agenda and Davos has to follow him,” said Mark Penn , a former Clinton adviser turned ad executive.
At this week’s gathering, discussions of climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion—two longtime Davos topics—are likely to be more muted than in past years, longtime attendees say. Trump’s administration has focused on the rollback of DEI initiatives and the elimination of so-called woke ideology. It is taking steps to dismantle DEI programs across the federal government and corporate America.
Trump slammed DEI initiatives during the speech he delivered virtually last year to Davos attendees, calling such policies discriminatory and touting his work to abolish them. “These were policies that were absolute nonsense throughout the government and the private sector,” Trump said.
The official theme of the 56th WEF gathering is “A Spirit of Dialogue,” with an agenda that highlights increased polarization and how growing competition among major powers is altering global influence.
While more than a dozen sessions on the program address climate issues this year, parts of the agenda acknowledge the polarization of the subject. Last year, there were about 27 sessions under a discussion track dubbed Safeguarding the Planet.
This is the conference’s first year under new leadership at the World Economic Forum. Geneva-based WEF has been grappling with governance issues and a shift in leadership with the exit of founder Klaus Schwab in April.
Schwab resigned as executive chair last year after the board opened a probe into a whistleblower’s allegations of misconduct by him and his wife, including unauthorized spending and inappropriate treatment of female staffers. Schwab has denied any wrongdoing; the board discovered minor expense irregularities but no material wrongdoing.
The conference organizer shuffled the leadership of its board in the wake of the probe, naming BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and André Hoffmann, the vice chairman of Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche Holding, as interim co-chairs.
The race to develop cutting-edge artificial-intelligence tools is expected to be another major theme of this year’s discussion. “The implications for work and workers and skills is, I think, going to be front and center,” said Maria Flynn , CEO of the nonprofit Jobs for the Future.
And after a year of dwelling on tariffs, supply chains and trade volatility, many CEOs say they are eager to return to growth mode.
Christoph Schweizer , CEO of Boston Consulting Group, said a client told him they “can’t squeeze the lemon a whole lot more” in cutting costs, and instead want to hunt for deals and new investments to increase revenue, efforts likely to be pursued at Davos.
“2026 is a growth imperative,” Schweizer said.
Write to Suzanne Vranica at Suzanne.Vranica@wsj.com and Chip Cutter at chip.cutter@wsj.com
