They have an environment where they think they really can make progress growing their businesses. You've got technology innovation that's helping people in their businesses and CEOs are very focused in that.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. A conversation spanning business sentiment, consumer credit, and of course the markets.
I think we're set up where we have the possibility for a stronger growth trajectory for the next few years.
Business people around the world are unleashed, he says, but there is always a risk assessment.
What slows them down, we're talking big multinationals. What slows them down is when there's uncertainty and some of the noise around geopolitics creates uncertainty. One of the things I try to do is I always try to step back and say, 'Okay, what's noise? What's actually substantively going on?'
Solomon talks geopolitics, AI investment, and the crisis facing many Americans.
The point that affordability is a big issue and we need to get at it, I think is correct. I don't believe that a 10% credit card cap would be constructive in that context.
I'm CNBC producer Cameron Costa. SquawkPod reports from Davos 2026. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon begins right now.
At the World Economic Forum, executives from all industries stop by the Squawkbox set. Bank of America's Brian Moynihan, soccer legend David Beckham, Bill Gates, Anthropic's founder Dario Amodei. I mean, iconic conversations. And they're all, by the way, wrapped up neatly as podcast episodes in your SquawkPod feed. So the biggest minds in tech, business, politics, and philanthropy are in Switzerland bumping shoulders in the cold with Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Joe, in fact, interviewed President Trump while they were both in the Alps. And that's where we're going to start this next interview.
President Trump suggesting he knows who he's going to pick as his next Fed chair nominee. When I spoke with the president, in fact, I mentioned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's idea that the administration might not want a new Fed chair who gets nervous about inflation when the country sees hot economic growth numbers if those numbers are the result of a productivity boom brought on by AI or by the big beautiful bill or other deregulation, other policies. And here's what the president told me. Right now, if you announce great numbers, the stock market goes down because they say, 'Oh, they're going to raise the rate. They're going to kill it.' Which really stops you from having any great runs, and we want to have a great run. So, we're going to be at 5 1/2 or something. They're predicting, I don't know, it's much higher than they thought, but let's say we're at 5 1/2. We could be at 10 or we could be at 12. We could be at 15.
Yeah, there was. It was funny on Kalshi yesterday. Did you see there was what questions? I was betting on what words that the president would use and someone sent it to me and I didn't want then I was afraid I didn't look at it.
By the way, there's something that I had done recently where my son sent it to me and now people are betting on what you're going to say. It's wild.
It is crazy at this point. 8% nominal growth. We can ask our next guest whether that happened once. Can it actually happen? I don't know. Andrew.
David Solomon is here, CEO of Goldman Sachs. We got a lot of ground to cover with you. That was not where we're going to start, but let's start right there. Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs.
Welcome. Welcome. Nice to see you.
Nice to see you guys. Always nice to be here with you guys. We have a confluence of some very stimulative things that make us pretty optimistic about the level of growth that we could see in 2026. I don't know that I would have thrown out, you know, 8% nominal. Nominal, though.
Yeah. I wouldn't have thrown out 8% nominal. But I do think that our view on nominal growth this year would be higher than the consensus.
You have very, very strong fiscal stimulus. You obviously have the things in the bill that are coming through. You have some stimulus that comes from the deregulatory environment that the administration has created. We obviously have continued AI infrastructure spend that's very, very significant. Plus you've got productivity gains coming as AI is implemented into the enterprise. So it's a relatively constructive environment. And barring, you know, in my mind some sort of an exogenous event or a change in sentiment that's created either by geopolitics or some other speed bump that we don't see, I think the nominal growth that we see will be ahead of the consensus. So I think the tailwinds are pretty constructive in that front.
You know, do you see the expensing? I keep hearing about the expensing thing that factories that previously wouldn't have been built are being built. Some of them was going to make batteries they didn't even make batteries for their own equipment before now because they can write it off immediately. They're actually starting breaking ground on a factory.
Well, I think the expense depreciation benefit is a big benefit to spur investment. There's a lot of talk about investment from US companies and from foreign companies. And I think one of the things that we're trying to do, I think everybody should be doing, is tracking what actual investment is occurring and how it's occurring. You know, these things, Joe, and you know this, they take time. To build factories, plan factories, actually get them in place, get them online takes time. And so, we're at the beginning of what is the potential for a much more significant investment.
When you're tracking it, what numbers?
It's early. In other words, right now it's more talk than it's actually happening. But there are a lot of people making significant commitments. And, you know, as people follow through, that is a further tailwind for growth. When you talk about the possibility for a multi-year run, you know, I think we're set up where we have the possibility for a stronger growth trajectory for the next few years. We're set up for that. That might not happen. A bunch of exogenous things could soften it, but I think we're set up with a better possibility for that than we've had in quite some time.
Can you square this circle for me? So, the economy looks strong, yet on one end we had the Mark Carney speech where the whole world is breaking apart and there'll be new partnerships and complete sort of reshaping of power in the world. And on the other end the president makes this deal with NATO last night and the market goes up and some people are saying this is just another great example of new cooperation. What's going on here underneath the sheets?
Well, we talked about what's going on in the economy, particularly the US economy, underneath the sheets. We're in a geopolitical environment that's more fragile than it's been for some time. You know, we have a president that's got a clear view about how he wants to drive an agenda and he's got a certain style in the context of the way he drives that. I think, you know, markets don't like uncertainty. And so if you just look back over the last couple of days, there's been a variety of narratives that have created a little bit more uncertainty and then there have been narratives that have followed up that seem to have taken the uncertainty out. And so I think what's interesting right now is the business environment sets up very well. Business people feel unleashed, you know, all over the world and want to invest in their businesses and grow their businesses. They have an environment where they think they really can make progress growing their businesses. You've got technology innovation that's helping people in their businesses and CEOs are very focused in that.
Are those US companies or around the world?
I think it's around the world. I think what slows them down, we're talking big multinationals. What slows them down is when there's uncertainty and some of the noise around geopolitics creates uncertainty. One of the things I try to do is I always try to step back and say, okay, what's noise? What's actually substantively going on? And I think that's a helpful lens. But on a day-to-day basis, when you're listening to the news, when you're listening to the speeches, if you're sitting here, you know, there's going to be noise mixed in with the substance.
