Kushner presents ‘master plan’ for Gaza
Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is now on stage, outlining plans for the redevelopment of Gaza.
Kushner says the “master plan” will be conducted in phases, including a push on workforce housing, where he suggests could also be a lot of industry, 100% employment and opportunity for everyone.
He’s now showing Davos a property development map of Gaza, and a computer-generated picture of ‘New Gaza’, with coastal tourism.
Here’s the timeline as Kushner showed on screen to delegates.
Key events
Musk tells Davos that some insurance companies have said that Tesla’s full-self driving is so safe that they’re offering half-price insurance if drivers use it.
Self-driving cars is “essentially a solved problem at this point”, he declares.
[Essentially is doing a lot of work. Last October, US automobile safety regulators opened an investigation into Tesla vehicles equipped with its full self-driving (FSD) technology over traffic-safety violations after a series of crashes.
Musk then predicts that Tesla will be selling humanoid robots to the public by the end of next year.
[We shall see! Musk has made some optimistic forecasts for robot deployment before; three years ago, he said the goal is to make a useful humanoid robot “as quickly as possible”].
Unfortunately, the US tariff barriers for solar are extremely high, as most of production is in China, WEF hears.
The limiting factor for AI deployment is fundamentally electrical power, Musk continues (rather than production of chips, or the rollout of fabrication plans).
He then talks about China’s ‘tremendous’ growth in electricity output, and tells Davos that a 100 mile by 100 mile area of solar would be enough to power the entire US.
More blue-sky thinking from Musk: he suggests aging is a solvable problem (although isn’t clear how it will be solved), suggesting its highly likely that ways to “extend and maybe even reverse” life will be found.
There would be an “explosion” in the global economy, and unprecedented growth, if the world reaches a point of ubiquitous, essentially free, artificial intelligence and ubiquitous robots, Musk continues.
He’s outlining a future where all human needs are saturated, with everyone on earth having a robot of their own, to watch over their children, pet or elderly parents.
I think we will have those things.
I’m very optimistic about the future. I think we’re heading to a future of amazing abundance.
Musk says the goal of his companies is about maximising the possibility that civilisation has a great future, and to expand consciousness beyond Earth.
SpaceX, for example, is developing rocket technology that can extend life and consciousness beyond Earth to the moon, Mars and “eventually to other star systems”.
Musk jokes (I think!) that he’s often asked ‘are their aliens?’. He replies “I am one, but they don’t believe me”.
[he’s made this joke, before, so he’s a consistent alien if so]
Musk: Is it the Piece (of Greenland) Summit?
Musk suggest he may deliver five newsworthy quotes…
And then he suggests that Donald Trump’s new initiative might actually be called the “Piece summit”.
He jokes about getting “a little piece of Greenland”… before insisting “What we want is peace”.
Musk to hold Davos ‘conversation’
Elon Musk has battled through his dislike of the World Economic Forum (see earlier post), and appeared on the stage of the main hall here at the Davos congress centre.
There’s some scattered applause – Larry Fink, who is going to interview him, complains that it wasn’t loud enough, so the audience give him a more vigorous chap.
After years of criticising Davos, Elon Musk is here this year.
He’ll shortly appear on the main World Economic Forum stage for conversation with Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, and an interim co-chair of WEF.
Musk has repeatedly mocked Davos on his social media platform X, calling it “boring”; three years ago he claimed WEF was an “unelected world government.”
Lack of trust in the international order has been a common theme at Davos this year.
S&P Global Ratings’ global chief economist, Paul Gruenwald, argues that globalization has not gone into reverse, but geopolitical developments are leading trade to be rerouted.
He adds:
With the U.S. pulling back from its traditional guardian of the system role, leadership is in short supply….it is necessary to put a geopolitical lens on everything, including macro.”
AP: Trump has a long drive back to Zurich
Donald Trump has now left Davos, meaning the security levels here have dropped back a few notches.
But the great Associated Press team here report that bad weather kept his helicopter grounded.
That means he faces a drive from the mountain town to Air Force One that could take as long as two hours.
Video: Kushner outline redevelopment of Gaza
Here’s a video of Jared Kushner speaking at the World Economic Forum today, outlining plans for the redevelopment of Gaza:
Reminder: Julian Borger’s analysis is here.
John Collingridge
Arsene Wenger says the world cup will impose a high mental toll on players, because of the number of teams and four knockout rounds.
“This world cup will be more than ever a mental test for the teams,” he tells WEF delegates.
The key to success will be mixing concentration with “a good period of relaxation”, he added.
Infantino: Board of peace has FIFA’s full support
John Collingridge
Fifa president Gianni Infantino is in full Davos salesman mode as he kicks off a session on the summer’s World Cup, my colleague John Collingridge writes.
He takes to the pulpit clutching a football (the official one) and holds up the winner’s trophy for the tournament to be hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States this June and July.
“This is not a ball; this is a magic instrument that transforms people,” before tossing it into the audience.
Infantino then praises Donald Trump’s board of peace. “Of course we live in a divided world and of course we support peace,” he says, adding the board of peace has “the full support from Fifa.”
Infantino memorably handed Trump a peace prize at the World Cup draw in December, shortly before the US president ordered the capture of Venezuela’s leader and threatened to take over Greenland.
“We bring people together,” says Infantino. “It changes the mood not just of people but countries.”
John asked Arsène Wenger, the former Arsenal manager and head of global development at Fifa, about calls for teams to boycott the World Cup because of Trump’s disdain for international law.
“We have that before every World Cup; it was in Russia, Qatar,” says Wenger.
“I feel as much as you can be you have to be above that. I want football to be a feast and it is true that at the moment the world is tense but I hope the World Cup will get everyone together in a safe way.”
He says “nothing happened yet” with Greenland before hastily adding, “I’m not a politician. I’m focused on football and I hope the whole world who qualified can play together in harmony.”
Infantino says the tournament will be the “greatest show our planet has ever seen”, with 500 million ticket requests for the 104 games, which will be played between 48 teams.
He admits the tickets are “not cheap” and might get even more expensive when they are resold on resale platforms.
“I was hammered because of the ticket prices because they are so expensive. The main critics were from Germany and England,” he says, adding demand from those countries has been some of the strongest.
“Those tickets will be resold at higher prices and this is incredible.”
Trump threatens ‘big retaliation’ if Europe sold US debt
Peace only goes so far, of course.
And Donald Trump has threatened a “big retaliation” against European countries if they chose to sell their holdings of US debt.
He told Fox Business Network:
“If that would happen, there would be a big retaliation on our part, and we have all the cards.”
US government officials have been playing down the chances of Europe dumping US Treasuries in a retaliation over Greenland.
And arguably, the risk has receded since Trump abandoned his threatened new tariffs last night.
Zelenskyy to address Davos now
It’s another busy day here in Davos, with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy about to address delegates here, following a meeting with Donald Trump.
My colleague Jakub Krupa is going to blog the action here:
