Trump Is Making CEOs' Business His Business

In dealing with America's biggest companies, the commander in chief has no qualms about acting as the micromanager in chief.

- Chip Cutter Amrith Ramkumar

President Trump took his penchant for telling corporate bosses how to run their companies to another level Thursday by publicly calling on Intel's chief executive to resign. The move wasn't out of character: Trump has told Detroit carmakers not to raise prices and demanded Walmart "eat the tariffs." He's pressured the Washington Commanders football team to change its name and wants Coca-Cola to use cane sugar instead of corn syrup.

All of that intervention is creating a risk for business leaders who thought they had largely figured out the Trump playbook. Public flattery and splashy U.S. investment announcements were supposed to placate the president and keep companies out of his Truth Social posts. Instead, the Republican is weighing in on business decisions in unprecedented ways, in industries from pharmaceuticals to banking and manufacturing.

Now that the president has called for the head of one CEO, the fear is that he will target others who displease him, executives and corporate advisers say.

"It's wrong for the president of the United States to be telling a major corporation's board to fire their chief executive," said Bill George, a former CEO of the medicaldevice maker Medtronic, who remains in touch with executives across industries.

Trump's post criticizing Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan's past business dealings in China came the same day he used an executive order to strong-arm banks to do business with more conservatives and other political allies. A day earlier, he exempted tech companies like Apple from new tariffs on semiconductors-on the condition they increase their investments in the U.S.