Good Friday. Here’s what we’re watching:
• Steve Wynn is accused by several former employees of sexual misconduct over the years.
• President Trump addressed the World Economic Forum, telling the crowd, “‘America First’ does not mean ‘America alone.’”
• What he told C.E.O.s in Davos about Nafta and economic growth.
• What’s happening at Dell?
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Steve Wynn faces accusations of misconduct
Shares of Wynn Resorts tumbled almost 9 percent in afternoon trading after a report of sexual misconduct by its founder and chief executive.
The WSJ just published a lengthy investigation into the casino mogul in which several former employees recounted incidents of sexual harassment and misconduct. Among the accusations were that Mr. Wynn pressured employees into sex.
From the article by Alexandra Berzon, Chris Kirkham, Elizabeth Bernstein and Kate O’Keeffe:
Former employees said they sometimes entered fake appointments in the books to help other female workers get around a request for services in Mr. Wynn’s office or arranged for others to pose as assistants so they wouldn’t be alone with him. They told of female employees hiding in the bathroom or back rooms when they learned he was on the way to the salon.
“Everybody was petrified,” said Jorgen Nielsen, a former artistic director at the salon. Mr. Nielsen said he and others repeatedly told high-level company executives that Mr. Wynn’s sexual advances were causing a problem, but “nobody was there to help us.”
Mr. Wynn told the WSJ, “The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous” and blamed his ex-wife, Elaine, of instigating the investigation. Ms. Wynn disputed that assertion.
— Michael J. de la Merced
‘America first does not mean America alone.’
President Trump used his speech to set out his economic record, while seeking to reconcile his “America first” protectionist stance with a call for free trade and foreign investment.
Mr. Trump took credit for the strong American economy, which he said had followed “years of stagnation.” He also pointed to rising stock prices, improving consumer and business confidence, and job growth. Growth in gross domestic product since he took office, however, is similar to that of 2014 and 2015.
Addressing the World Economic Forum, the Alpine conclave of business and political elites that American presidents have usually shunned, Mr. Trump said he would “always put America first, just as the leaders of other countries should put their countries first.”
“But America first does not mean America alone,” he said. “When the United States grows, so does the world.”
Mr. Trump — never invited when he was a businessman — also delivered the message that the United States was open for business, appealing for international investment.
But he hit one of his favorite themes: that the global free trade regime has often treated the United States unjustly.
“We cannot have free and open trade if some countries exploit the system at the expense of others,” Mr. Trump said. “We support free trade, but it needs to be fair and it needs to be reciprocal, because in the end, unfair trade undermines us all. The United States will no longer turn a blind eye to unfair economic practices.”
Mr. Trump specifically mentioned theft of intellectual property and central government direction of economies. In the past, he has linked those practices with China, but on Friday he did not do so.
—Richard Perez-Pena
Critics’ corner
Rob Cox and Una Galani of Breakingviews:
“What was new in Trump’s Davos appearance aside from the style was the framing of his administration’s approach to trade and the like. Rather than bashing the Chinese for stealing American jobs, he stuck to larger principles of fairness. The United States “will no longer turn a blind eye to unfair economic practices including massive intellectual-property theft, industrial subsidies, and pervasive state-led economic planning,” he said. It’s a rational argument – and hints at something like leadership.”
What Salesforce C.E.O. Marc Benioff tweeted after the speech:
What the cameras didn’t show: Many C.E.O.s actually weren’t present for Mr. Trump’s speech, because they had already left Davos.
— Michael J. de la Merced
The center of gravity at Davos is now Trump
That’s whether attendees like it or not. The president has already been making the rounds of the global elite at the World Economic Forum, including at meetings for business leaders last night.
At a reception for U.S. chief executives, Mr. Trump talked up the prospect of even higher U.S. economic growth. He said he wanted economy growing at 5 percent or 6 percent, according to our spies — and joked about maybe reaching 7 percent. (G.D.P. growth hit about 3.2 percent in the third quarter last year. We’ll learn fourth quarter results this morning.)
He also spoke openly about the White House’s internal debate about Nafta, and whether he would need to rip it up and start over.
Our colleague Peter Goodman told us more about the president’s dinner with European business leaders last night:
The message was that the U.S. is open for business and eager to welcome fresh investment. Attendees included the heads of Siemens, Adidas, HSBC and Volvo.
Many of the European corporate chieftains arrived at the dinner concerned about Mr. Trump’s provocative words about a possible trade war, his harsh treatment of immigrants, his skepticism about climate change, and his apparent disdain for international cooperation. But in the course of a conversation with the C.E.O.s, moderated by Gary Cohn, the dinner appears to have assuaged the worst concerns, leaving many convinced that Mr. Trump employs outrage as a negotiating tactic while pursuing pragmatic aims.
“There’s a very constructive mind-set in the Trump administration to find the best path forward,” one attendee, Vas Narasimhan, the C.E.O. of Novartis, said.
The president is addressing the forum this morning. The line for his speech was really long.
More from the World Economic Forum
• Mr. Trump sought to mend relations with Britain but widened a rift with the Palestinians. (NYT)
• Steven Mnuchin learned a hard lesson on the effect his off-the-cuff comments can have on the dollar. (NYT)
• Prime Minister Theresa May’s sparsely attended speech at Davos reflected Britain’s shrinking role on the world stage. (NYT)
• George Soros said in a speech, “I consider the Trump administration a danger to the world,” but added that he expects Democrats to prevail in the 2018 and 2020 elections. (Bloomberg)
• Larry Fink of BlackRock said on a panel at the forum, “I think the question isn’t the financial system but the inclusiveness of the financial system, and we don’t talk about that at all.” (CNBC)
The political flyaround
• Mr. Trump ordered the firing of Robert Mueller as special counsel in June, but backed off when the White House’s top lawyer, Don McGahn, threatened to quit over the demand. (NYT)
• The White House put forward a proposal that would protect Dreamers in exchange for hard-line immigration measures. Democrats and some Republicans rejected the overture. (NYT)
• Where hedge funds turn for help in Washington: the DCI Group, a consultancy well-versed in the Beltway practice of astroturfing. (Bloomberg)
• There’s turmoil at the National Labor Relations Board, as the Trump administration seeks to reverse the direction of federal labor policy. (NYT)
• Scientists and other academics have begun a campaign to pressure Rebekah Mercer into resigning from the board of the American Museum of Natural History. (NYT)
What will Dell do?
It was taken private by Michael Dell and Silver Lake in 2013 and closed its takeover of EMC, one of the biggest-ever tech deals, in 2016. Now it’s reviewing what it could do next.
Among its options, according to Bloomberg and the WSJ, citing unnamed sources:
• An I.P.O. (though it’s already sort of publicly traded)
• A full takeover of VMware, of which it owns 80 percent
• An I.P.O. of Pivotal Software, a cloud-services provider
The elephant in the room: Dell’s enormous debt load, currently about $51 billion and with annual interest payments of about $2 billion. The company and its backers have loudly complained about the recent tax overhaul, which limits corporations’ ability to deduct interest payments.
The deals flyaround
• Are mergers holding down workers’ pay? Many economists believe so, pointing to the plight of the industrial Midwest. (NYT)
• Les Moonves of CBS and Bob Bakish of Viacom had held a preliminary discussion about merging their companies. (Reuters)
• Daniel Pinto, JPMorgan Chase’s head of investment banking, predicts a bumper year for M. & A. (Bloomberg)
• ESPN is weighing a sale of FiveThirtyEight, the online media company founded by Nate Silver. (NYT)
• Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management has taken a stake in Nike, though it isn’t an activist position. (WSJ)
• Tencent has bought a stake in Skydance, the production company behind the “Terminator” franchise, at a valuation of about $1.5 billion, according to an unnamed source. (WSJ)
• Sotheby’s has bought Thread Genius, a start-up that combines A.I. and image recognition, to match potential buyers with artwork they may like. (Bloomberg)
The World Bank’s new plan: Work with Wall Street
What can you do when your efforts are dwarfed by the funds pouring into developing countries through financial markets? For Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank, the solution was to partner with investors.
But not everyone at the bank is comfortable with the approach. More from Landon Thomas Jr. of the NYT:
“This would be a cultural and organizational shift for the bank, which has not engaged with the private sector in a substantial way,” said Joel Hellman, a former top economist at the bank who is now dean of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. “World Bank staffers are used to talking to governments, and now they have to leverage the private sector? It is a different skill set, and flexibility is not the hallmark of development institutions.”
In other World Bank News:Its chief economist, Paul Romer, resigned, weeks after apologizing to Chile for the way it was treated in a report on countries’ competitiveness.
Airbnb hiring Ken Chenault is another step toward an I.P.O.
Appointing Mr. Chenault, the outgoing American Express C.E.O. and a Wall Street grandee, as an outside director signals a strengthening of the home-rental company’s corporate governance. It’s another sign that the Silicon Valley darling — last valued at more than $30 billion — is preparing for a stock market debut.
Deal-makers and investors think Airbnb could go public as soon as this year. In a public letter, Airbnb co-founder and C.E.O. Brian Chesky only allowed that he wanted to build the company on “an infinite time horizon.”
Positive signs for Airbnb’s business: The company has been profitable (on a pro forma basis) and privately has told people that it has grown revenue by roughly 50 percent.
The big question: Can Airbnb sustain that growth by finding more homes to rent out? And can it do so without overspending on marketing?
The Silicon Valley flyaround
• Lyft is investigating whether employees looked at customers’ ride data improperly, including checking on rides by romantic partners and celebrities like Mark Zuckerberg. (The Information)
• Benchmark has officially withdrawn its lawsuit against Travis Kalanick, now that Uber’s deal with SoftBank is done. (Recode)
• Walmart is getting into e-books, while Apple is revamping its iBooks market. And Google is getting into audiobooks.
Everyone wants in on Telegram’s I.C.O.
Including venture firms like Benchmark, according to Axios. V.C.s have been rushing to amend their fund documents to let them buy virtual currencies.
What’s less exciting: Ripple and its XRP token, since banks and their clients aren’t interested.
Should you buy Bitcoin with your credit card? Probably not, but providers like Capital One and Charles Schwab won’t let you anyway.
WeWork and New Orleans’ mayor discuss the future of work
The company’s co-founder and C.E.O., Adam Neumann, and Mayor Mitch Landrieu will join the journalist Walter Isaacson for a conversation at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting today at 10:30 a.m. Eastern. The topic: the changing nature of the work force and how cities can address the issue. (The conversation will be live-streamed here.)
Naturally, WeWork will argue that it’s part of the solution.
Revolving door
• Liza Landsman, the president of Jet.com, is leaving the ecommerce company a little over a year since being named to the position, according to unnamed sources. (Recode)
• The law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges has hired Matthew Stewart, most recently a partner at King & Spalding and a specialist in private equity, as a partner in its Silicon Valley office. (Weil)
• The Democratic National Committee, hacked in 2016, has hired Bob Lord, the former head of information security at Yahoo, to be its chief security officer. (Wired)
The Speed Read
• Monkeys watching cartoons, while inhaling fumes from a Volkswagen Beetle: An experiment that produced false data sheds light on how German automakers financed scientific research to promote their political agenda. (NYT)
• Artificial intelligence is more transparent than human intelligence and will allow for better auditing, writes Vijay Pande, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. (NYT)
• Apple has scooped up the rights for a television project from Damien Chazelle, the writer and director of “La La Land.” (NYT)
• A federal advisory committee recommended that the F.D.A. reject a bid by Philip Morris International to market a smokeless tobacco stick in the United States as safer than traditional cigarettes. (NYT)
• Few are betting on Indianapolis being Amazon’s second headquarters, but Salesforce has found it to be a business-friendly city. (NYT)
• The asset manager TCW is being sued by Sara Tirschwell, a hedge fund manager who said she was fired in retaliation for complaining about being sexually harassed and coerced into sex by her boss. (Reuters)
• Jamison Capital Partners is shutting its $1.5 billion flagship fund, one of the most high-profile commodities hedge funds to close in recent months. (WSJ)
• HNA Group agreed to sell a Sydney office building to Blackstone for about $161 million, in an effort to deal with its mounting debts, according to people familiar with the matter. (Bloomberg)
We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions tobizday@nytimes.com.
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