President Donald Trump departed from Zurich Airport for Davos by helicopter, 44 minutes after his plane landed.

TV images showed Marine One took off at 1:19 p.m. local time, accompanied by four other helicopters.

The 75-mile journey to Davos should take roughly 30 minutes. Trump is due to speak at 2:30 p.m.

Marco Rubio and Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles were also pictured boarding the presidential helicopter. A convoy of black SUVs was also seen driving onto the tarmac, apparently to transport other passengers from the plane.

AI is changing what tech companies look for in new hires, and China's tech startup scene is no exception.

Yutong Zhang, president of the Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI, said she increasingly prioritizes learning ability, as she said knowledge and skills become outdated more quickly in an AI-driven economy.

"Every day we're feeling that the learning ability is [more] very important than the past experience because past experience and past knowledge may get expired sooner than before," Zhang told a Davos panel.

As AI tools can now generate expertise on demand, she said the value of narrow specialization is declining.

She said the education system should prioritize "general thinking" and "general knowledge," and build "learning abilities" and "AI proficiency," as her startup struggles to find "the right fit" among job candidates.

President Donald Trump has always had a showman's flair for conjuring attention and anticipation, and his Davos address is no different. No less than the future of NATO is at stake.

Outside the auditorium where Trump will speak this afternoon, attendees told me they had no idea what he would say, so they came here to find out, especially what he says about Greenland.

Several also mentioned they had never seen Trump speak in person since he appeared via video last year.

"I'm very curious," said one attendee.

"At least it will be entertaining," said another.

"I just want to see where his mind goes," said someone else.

Trump had to switch airplanes due to electrical issues, so part of the mystery is what time he will take the stage. Security guards cleared Congress Hall after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink wrapped up around noon.

While waiting to go back in to hear Trump, attendees, including financier Anthony Scaramucci and University of California chief investment officer, Jagdeep Singh Bachher, could be seen sipping coffee and eating saffron risotto Milanese.

A French journalist approached me to ask whether Trump's threats were real. I told her I didn't know.

Trump touched down in Zurich at 12:35 p.m. local time after an eventful journey.

President Donald Trump's original airplane departed about 10 hours ago, but it turned around due to a "minor electrical issue." He has instead flown to Switzerland on a Boeing C-32A, which is typically used for the Vice President's Air Force Two.

His journey has taken over three hours longer than first expected. Now, there's another 75 miles to reach Davos, most likely by helicopter.

As Trump seeks Greenland, insisting that it's key for protection against Russia and China, his allies don't actually disagree with his security concerns. His methods are causing great tension among his allies, but they agree that the Arctic is an area of risk.

"I think President Trump is right. Other leaders in NATO are right. We need to defend the Arctic," as China and Russia increase their presence there, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in a Wednesday morning appearance at Davos.

"For the United States to stay safe, you need a safe Arctic, a safe Atlantic, and a safe Europe."

He described that as a process that's underway: "We are working on that, making sure that collectively we will defend the Arctic region."

Finland, one of the NATO member states in the Arctic, agreed, and President Alexander Stubb framed it as a chance to strengthen Arctic security within the alliance. He expects tensions with the US to de-escalate, "I think at the end of the day, we'll find an off-ramp on this."

In short, we don't exactly know.

No clear indication has been given of what the president plans to discuss in his special address to the Davos crowd. It seems highly likely, however, that his desire to make Greenland part of the USA, the diplomatic furore it has ignited, and new tariffs on Western allies, will be front and center.

Other topics he could touch on include his first year in office, the affordability crisis, and the rising deficit in the US.

Tuesday will go down as the day global financial markets finally started paying attention to Trump's Greenland threats. As Business Insider's Jennifer Sor noted yesterday, stocks tumbled in one of the worst days for the US market since April 2025. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq dropped more than 2%, while the Dow wasn't far behind, losing 1.8%.

Things are looking much calmer so far on Wednesday, with investors seemingly in a classic holding pattern ahead of the president's speech later. Futures for all three major US indexes are pointing to a slightly higher open, with expected gains of around 0.2%. In Europe, where markets are open, major indexes in the UK, France, and Germany are marginally lower, but little moved.

Futures for the S&P 500 VIX, a widely-watched measure of market volatility, are down around 2%.

President Donald Trump's hugely anticipated speech this afternoon is dominating the conversation at Davos, but due to an electrical issue with Air Force One overnight, the president is many hours behind schedule.

Trump was due to speak at 2:30 p.m. local time (8:30 a.m. ET), but according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, he's likely to be around three hours behind.

While we don't yet have any confirmation of a change in schedule, Bessent's timings would put Trump's speech at 5:30 p.m. local time (11:30 a.m. ET).

In a statement to Business Insider, the World Economic Forum said it is "in close contact with the US delegation and will provide an update should there be any changes to the President's schedule or related programme arrangements."

Business Insider is tracking the US military jet carrying Trump over the Atlantic closely, and we'll keep you updated on his progress.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, told the European Parliament that there has now been a "seismic" and "permanent" shift in the international order.

"And the sheer speed of change far outstrips anything we have seen in decades. We now live in a world defined by raw power — whether economic or military, technological or geopolitical," von der Leyen said in Strasbourg, France, hours before Trump's big Davos speech.

"And while many of us may not like it, we must deal with the world as it is now," she said.

Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said Russia's economy has started to "flash red." He cited agreement among many economists that it "will have resources to continue for at least 12 months or more."

It's not that Russia doesn't have the resources to continue its war after that point. However, it will have much harder decisions to make, "painful choices" like cutting spending on infrastructure and healthcare.

"It's clear that this era of maintaining stability and funding a very costly war is over," Gabuev said.

Moldovan Prime Minister Alexandru Munteanu said at the same panel that the Russian economy's "expansionist model" is unsustainable in the long term.

"It's not the question whether it's going to collapse, it's the question when it's going to happen," Munteanu said.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had something to say about Denmark ahead of Trump's arrival.

"Denmark's investment in US Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant," Bessent told reporters at a morning press conference.

He was responding to a Tuesday announcement from the Danish pension fund AkademikerPension that it would sell $100 million in US Treasurys.

"They've been selling Treasurys for years, I'm not concerned at all," Bessent said.

Newsom has been swinging around Davos, almost as a Democratic counterweight to Trump.

"He is here hobnobbing with the global elite while his California citizens are still homeless. Shame on him. He is too smug, too self-absorbed, and too economically illiterate to know anything," Bessent said of Newsom.

Newsom on Tuesday evening had made an X post calling Bessent a "smug man" who's "out of touch."

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said at a panel on Wednesday morning that he thinks "we need to spend more money to make sure that we're competing properly against China."

There are two big factors at play here, Fink said. The first: Can the West grow economies fast enough to overcome deficits?

"That can be one big issue, especially with the rising deficits of the US," Fink said.

Secondly, another limiting factor is whether Western economies can make a J-curve of demand happen for AI and other technologies.

"The key to that is making sure that the demand only comes if technology is diffused for more applications, more utilizations," Fink said. "If technology is just the domain of the six hyperscalers, we will fail."

David Steinbach, Hines' global chief investment officer, didn't mince words when describing the overall real-estate environment.

"It's been a really bad few years, honestly," Steinbach told me. "Really beginning in 2022."

Rising geopolitical tensions and the siloing of regions can make the environment even trickier. Especially for a company with over $90 billion of assets across 30 countries. Still, Steinbach told me that Hines raised about 50% more discretionary capital year over year in 2025.

"There's a risk and opportunity, right? The risk is it's now different. And that's probably not changing anytime soon," Steinbach said. "The opportunity is a lot needs to be built now, because you've got supply chains that need to get re-looked. You got very directive investments in-country."

"That's creating a lot of demand as well," Steinbach added.

The police in Zurich deployed a water cannon after anti-Trump protests got chaotic, according to multiple reports from local media outlets.

Videos from the scene showed protesters holding up banners, including one that read: "TRUMP NOT WELCOME."

Zurich is a two-hour drive from Davos. It's likely that the president will face much less resistance at the ski resort, where executives are clamoring to meet him.