Live Davos updates: Elon Musk speaks in his first-ever Davos appearance

If Wednesday was Trump day at the World Economic Forum, then Thursday is all about Elon Musk.

Musk, the world's richest person, is making his first-ever appearance at Davos, taking the stage in conversation with Larry Fink, the WEF's cochair.

We'll be bringing you live updates from Musk's talk and the rest of Davos here. Follow along for the latest.

Optimus robots will be on sale to the public by the end of next year, Musk says

"Humanoid robotics will advance very quickly. We do have some of the Tesla Optimus robots doing simple tasks in the factory," Musk says.

"By the end of this year, I think they will be doing more complex tasks, but still deployed in an industrial environment," he adds.

"By the end of next year, I think we'll be selling humanoid robots to the public. That's when we are confident that it's very high liability, very high safety, and the range of functionality is high."

Musk said in 2024 that he wanted to sell Optimus in 2026.

Fifteen minutes in, it isn't entirely clear why Musk came to Davos. So far, his comments are mostly familiar.Fink asks Musk if he wants to solve human aging

"I do think it is a very solvable problem," he says.

"When we figure out what causes ageing, I think we'll find it's incredibly obvious."

Stopping aging isn't necessarily a good thing, he adds.

"There is a reason we don't have a longer life span. There is some risk of an ossification of society, of things getting locked in place."

Almost everyone on the planet will have a robot, Musk says

"We will actually make so many robots and AI that they will actually saturate human needs."

"My prediction is that there will be more robots than people."

"Who wouldn't want a robot to, assuming it's very safe, watch over your kids, take care of your pets?"

Musk quickly turns to AI and robotics, saying they will lead to a huge economic boom

"If we have ubiquitous AI, which is essentially free or close to it, and ubiquitous robotics, then you will have an explosion in the global economy that is truly beyond all precedent."

''I'm often asked: 'Are there aliens among us?'''

"And I say, I am one, but they don't believe me. If anyone would know if there were aliens among us, it would be me."

Musk starts with a joke

"I heard about the formation of the peace summit. And I was like, is that piece? A little piece of Greenland. A little piece of Venezuela," Musk says after Fink mentions Greenland.

Not many laughs for that one.

Musk and Larry Fink arrive onstage to muted applause

"That was not a large applause. Start again," Fink tells the audience.

Musk is scheduled to speak for 30 minutes

Yesterday, President Donald Trump was on the agenda for 45 minutes, and ended up speaking for nearly 90 including his brief Q&A with WEF President Børge Brende.

There is an interesting energy in the room prior to Musk's speech

Lots of smiles and small talk. Like a bunch of kids happily discussing their summer plans on the last day of school.

And why shouldn't they? After all, for many, the crisis had already been averted over the past 24 hours. A Greenland deal was cut, and many were feeling optimistic about the future.

Musk asks X followers what to talk about

Speaking @wef in 20 mins.
What should I say? 🤭

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2026

Hype is building inside the Congress Hall

We spoke to 3 robotics experts at Davos. They said this was the next big challenge for humanoid robots.

Humanoid robots can do kung-fu and parkour. But can they make your morning coffee?

At a Davos panel on Thursday, moderated by Business Insider's Jamie Heller, three robotics experts said humanoid robots needed to move beyond flashy demos and perform useful tasks in the real world at scale.

Jake Loosararian, the CEO of infrastructure startup Gecko Robotics, said that deploying robots into real-world environments was the major challenge facing the much-hyped industry.

Read full story

Attendees are queuing up to see Musk

Just over 30 minutes until Elon Musk is due to speakOpen offices in Ukraine, Zelenskyy urges business leaders at Davos

"Open offices in Ukraine. Yes, a little bit of a risk, but we decided to be honest today," the Ukrainian president said to some laughs.

"Give jobs to our people."

"This is real support: jobs, money, investment."

As he left the stage after his speech, he got a second standing ovation from the Davos crowd.

A standing ovation for President Zelenskyy in the Congress Hall

"Today we met with President Trump. Our teams are working every single day. It's not simple. The documents ending this war are nearly there and that really matters."

Citadel's CEO on the AI boom: 'Is it hype? Of course'

Hedge fund tycoon Ken Griffin has a blunt message for anyone expecting artificial intelligence to instantly rewrite the global economy: the hype is real — and it's there to justify enormous spending.

Speaking in Davos yesterday the Citadel CEO said the AI boom is being fueled as much by narrative as by real productivity gains. Griffin, the world's 39th richest person, said that doesn't mean AI isn't powerful — but expectations have run far ahead of reality.

Read full story

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's speech starts around 30 minutes late

A previous speech, given by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, overran significantly.

Zelenskyy met with President Donald Trump prior to his speech.

Trump appears to be heading home

Photos show the presidential motorcade heading down the mountain and out of Davos just before 3 p.m. local time.

Elon Musk's plane has landed

Flight-tracking data shows Elon Musk's Gulfstream G650 has reached Zurich. It landed at 2:22 p.m. local time, some 10 hours after departing San Jose.

Zurich is 75 miles from Davos, where Musk is scheduled to speak at the World Economic Forum at 4:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. ET).

As was US Secretary of State Marco Rubio

World Economic Forum cochair Larry Fink was in the building

The media is gathering ahead of Zelenskyy's speech

Zelenskyy is due to speak in roughly 20 minutes.

Musk's first Davos trip

Despite being probably the most prominent figure in the world of business over the past decade, today's appearance will be Musk's first in Davos.

He has a difficult history with the conference, having frequently criticized it in the past, famously calling it "boring af" ahead of the 2023 edition. That incident sparked the WEF into publicly saying it had not invited Musk since 2015.

He was invited last year, when he was heading up Trump's shortlived Department of Government Efficiency, but did not attend.

Musk crosses paths with his new adversary: budget airline Ryanair

Elon Musk's private jet is back in tracking range, flying over France and about 200 miles from Zurich.

For much of the past week, Musk has been locked in a war of words with Michael O'Leary, CEO of Europe's biggest airline Ryanair, over Starlink.

Perhaps ironically, Musk's jet earlier crossed paths with a Ryanair flight from Madrid to Dublin, which passed behind it by about 70 miles, with their flight paths intersecting roughly 10 minutes apart.

During their spat, Musk and O'Leary called each other idiots and Musk polled X users on purchasing the airline and installing a new boss named Ryan.

Then, on Wednesday, the Irish airline used the beef to promote its January sale and said it would hand-deliver a ticket to X's Dublin offices. Musk is yet to reply.

Davos day 4 highlights

After the massive buzz around Trump's speech yesterday, things are a little lighter in terms of big name speakers at the World Economic Forum on Thursday. Still, it's Davos, so even a light day would be the envy of pretty much any other conference on earth.

The day's main event, of course, is Elon Musk's appearance at 4:30 p.m. local time (10:30 a.m. ET), but other highlights include a special address from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at 2:30 local time (8:30 ET). Zelenskyy, who initially planned to skip Davos this year, will also meet Trump while he is in Switzerland.

Elsewhere, Business Insider Editor In Chief Jamie Heller has just kicked off a discussion about living autonomously with MIT academic Daniela Rus, Gecko Robotics CEO Jake Loosararian, and Shao Tianlan, CEO of Mech-Mind.

There are levels to this game

Continuing our coverage of coat rooms across Davos, I was turned away from Cloakroom A in the Congress Center today.

"We're only taking white badges today. Sorry."

White badges are the top dogs in Davos' weird caste system, having access to basically everything. That's followed by silver (government officials), orange (media-types like me), black (security), and finally hotel badges.

There was a free coat room for us non-white-badgers just around the corner. But that didn't stop some from feeling offended.

I heard one attendee who was turned down muttering "discrimination" under his breath.

Trump has signed the charter of the Board of Peace, and posed for his customary picture with the document

After leaving the Congress Hall, Trump thanked onlookers, but didn't take questions from reporters.

Davos' hottest jet: The Gulfstream G650

It looks like Elon Musk is heading to Davos on his Gulfstream G650 private jet — the model of choice among the very wealthy. When I was tracking private jet arrivals on Monday, it was the most frequent type, representing 31 of 157 landings at nearby airports.

According to JetSpy data, G650s that have landed near Davos this week include ones owned by: Aramco, Bill Gates, BlackRock (twice), Blackstone, The Carlyle Group, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Google, and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Larry Ellison, and Mark Zuckerberg also own G650s, per JetSpy.

Not everyone is entirely happy with the Board of Peace

None of Europe's three largest economies, Germany, the UK, and France, will be signatories to the board today.

In an interview with the BBC from Davos this morning, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said that this was in part due to "concerns about President Putin being part of something which is talking about peace when we still haven't seen any signs from Putin there will be a commitment to peace in Ukraine."

The Kremlin earlier this week said Putin had been invited to join the initiative, which is focused on overseeing Gaza as part of plans to find a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Trump is back onstage launching the Board of Peace

Though Trump's centerpiece appearance at Davos was his 70-minute-long speech yesterday afternoon, the president is back onstage this morning.

He's launching his Board of Peace, alongside other world leaders, including Argentine President Javier Milei and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

"Just about every country wants to be a part of it," he tells the crowd.

He then describes the world's troubles as "really calming down," saying: "Just one year ago, the world was actually on fire."

When might Elon arrive?

Elon Musk's private jet is somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean as he makes a last-minute trip to Davos.

The Gulfstream G650 took off from San Jose International at 7:12 p.m. PT. About six hours later, ADS-B Exchange data had it some 2,200 miles away from Zurich.

The airplane was last recorded traveling at 660 miles per hour, which means it should land in Switzerland before 2 p.m. (8 a.m. ET). Davos is then about a 40-minute helicopter ride away.

We don't know for sure Musk is on the jet, but it seems highly likely.

Unlike President Donald Trump, who was delayed yesterday due to a fault with Air Force One, Musk should have plenty of time to get to Davos on time.

Protesters are getting creative

There has been no shortage of protests at the World Economic Forum this week, with anti-billionaire, environmental, and anti-war demonstrators seen in the town.

One of the more creative demos we've seen, however, is this snow-based slogan. If you can't quite read it, it says: "NO IMPERIALISM."

'I don't think it's going to put everyone out of work,' says White House AI czar David Sacks on AI

David Sacks spoke on Wednesday at the USA House alongside Michael Kratsios, the White House's director for science and tech policy. He pushed back on the most alarmist interpretations of Elon Musk's warnings about AI and jobs, arguing they strip out a crucial part of Musk's broader vision.

According to Sacks, Musk isn't predicting a sudden mass-unemployment crisis so much as a radically different economic system, closer to a "Star Trek"-style world where technology supplies basic needs.

"Look, I think that Elon is directionally correct about the future. I think we are heading towards a country of abundance. Rising living standards for everybody, greater productivity. I think that will lead to rising wages. I don't think it's going to put everyone out of work."

Davos has turned into a tech conference

I've usually thought of Davos as being more dominated by finance and blue-chip companies, but clearly, tech has taken over.

Walking down the main thoroughfare in Davos is always fun because all the shops that are open the rest of the year are taken over this week by companies that host "houses" to showcase their brands and host clients and events.

Walking along the street this year, it seems like 80% of the houses are tech. Palantir and Meta (with its free hot chocolate stand) had the most visible presence. Amazon's house was surprisingly small. Google was far away from the main action. Lightspeed was the only venture capital firm I saw, with its odd retro "Lighthouse."

It is also interesting to see who is not here. OpenAI has no house, and Sam Altman did not come, though some executives are here. Elon Musk was not originally part of the program but was a last-minute addition today.

Davos feels like San Francisco this week

There were so many techies here that sometimes I felt like I was in San Francisco.

I asked a couple of startup founders why they came so far to be here, and the consensus was that there's nothing like Davos for the efficiency of meeting potential customers and investors who are all packed into a tiny Swiss village for the week.

Waiting in the cold in a long line for a party for General Catalyst and Lightspeed, I asked one founder why he traveled here.

He told me Alexandr Wang, founder and former CEO of Scale AI, who is now Chief AI Officer at Meta, advised him that Davos was highly useful because Wang said last year he signed almost a third of Scale's customers in the short time he was there.

Harvey cofounder CEO Winston Weinberg told me that dealmaking started even before I arrived, with many transactions happening in the business-class sections of flights to Zurich from San Francisco and New York.

Digital twins are the hot new thing in robotics

Jamie Heller, Business Insider's editor in chief, led a panel on smart factories that dove into the future of physical AI and what's needed before robots become mainstream in homes and factory floors.

One phrase dominated her conversation: digital twins. Execs from Siemens, Agility Robotics, and Automation Anywhere agreed that what once sounded like a possibility in the distant future is now delivering real productivity gains.

"You want to have this digital twin alive once you are running your production because it allows you to optimize all the time," Siemens' CEO Roland Busch said. "If you make a change, if there's something going wrong, you see real-time what's happening on the shop floor."

Gavin Newsom: It's 'the rule of Don' in the US

California Gov. Gavin Newsom spent most of his 30-minute interview at Davos with Semafor's editor in chief slamming President Donald Trump and the administration. The US is living under "the rule of Don" rather than the rule of law, Newsom said.

"Co-equal branches of government, the rule of law, popular sovereignty," he said. "Tell me that that reflects the America you read about today."

Read full story

The ElonJet is in the air

Flight data from ADS-B Exchange showed that Musk's private jet, a Gulfstream G650, took off from San Jose International Airport Wednesday night, local time, and is traveling east.

It's not yet clear whether Musk is on the aircraft, but he's scheduled to appear on a panel with Larry Fink at 4:30 p.m., Swiss time.

Read full story

Cisco's president: 'I don't want anyone to be a full-time manager'

Management is a bug, not a feature, in a career path at Cisco.

Jeetu Patel, Cisco's president and chief product officer, is a big proponent of the great flattening. In fact, if you're only managing people at Cisco, you're doing something wrong.

"I want everyone to be a player-coach. I don't want anyone to be a full-time manager. We don't need full-time managers at Cisco," he told me on Wednesday.

He called the philosophy "foundational" to Cisco. People need to think about how they want to change the world and what they can do to contribute to that change, rather than focusing on specific job titles.

"If in the pursuit of that change, you have to go out and reluctantly manage some people, then go ahead and do that," Patel said. "But management, in and of itself, is not a full-time job."

JPM's top European bankers on clients' uncertainty

Conor Hillery and Matthieu Wiltz are well-versed in how European investors are feeling.

JPMorgan's co-CEOs of EMEA took a two-week trip across Europe and the Middle East to meet with clients at the start of the year. It corresponded with escalating geopolitical situations in Venezuela and Greenland, making for a unique trip.

When I spoke to them on Wednesday morning, before Trump's speech, they told me clients aren't necessarily looking to pull the plug on things, but the questions are mounting.

"I think it's just raising the spectre of uncertainty, so clients aren't making any definitive assumptions at this stage," Hillery told me. "In the back of their heads, they are starting to think that this could get a lot more complicated than it's been for the last few years."

And even since the trip, the situation is evolving almost minute by minute.

"There is a bit more of a question mark now compared to the first two weeks of January," Wiltz added.

Newsom: 'I'm living rent-free in Trump's head'

There was a bit of show-and-tell from the California governor at his morning session. He took out a set of red kneepads, which he said are meant for the CEOs who kneel to Trump. He also accused some corporate leaders — he didn't name them — of "selling out to this administration."

No shortage of jabs at Trump, too. The governor called Trump an "invasive species," among other things.

"I'm living rent-free in Trump's head," Newsom said.

Musk has slammed Davos in the past

He posted negatively about the forum in 2022 and 2023.

My reason for declining the Davos invitation was not because I thought they were engaged in diabolical scheming, but because it sounded boring af lol

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 30, 2022

Elon Musk will speak at Davos

Musk is a new addition to the programme — he's now listed to speak with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink at 4:30 p.m.

Read full story

Business Insider was in the room at Trump's speech, and this is what went down

Business Insider's Ben Bergman brought us to-the-minute updates from inside the room where Trump gave his speech.

Great to start my day in Davos for the second day in a row with @Elex_Michaelson.
Today I shared what it was like to be in the room for President Trump’s lengthy address. pic.twitter.com/MmEjTEBgea

— Ben Bergman (@thebenbergman) January 22, 2026

Check out the full story, too.

Read full story

Now it's Gavin Newsom's moment to shine

Newsom sparred with Scott Bessent and, on Wednesday, stared into the camera in the middle of Trump's speech with a wry, knowing smile — giving his best imitation of Jim from "The Office."

rent free pic.twitter.com/lLB7uVydkf

— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) January 21, 2026

The California governor has also been making his rounds with the press, giving snappy soundbites about how the Democratic Party and world leaders should best deal with the president.

This morning in Davos, Newsom will get his share of the spotlight. He's scheduled for a panel at 8:30 a.m. local time.

It was all about Trump on Wednesday

ICYMI, though we don't know how you could've.

After a slight hiccup in his travel plans due to an electrical fault on Air Force One, President Donald Trump and his team swept into Davos on Wednesday for a much-anticipated speech.

The reactions? Mixed. Business Insider was in the room for his speech, and we fact-checked the president's praise for the US economy.

And after all the panic over Greenland, Trump called off his new tariffs on Europe. There's to be a "framework" in place, per an agreement with NATO, with more to come on what that'll mean.

Read the original article on Business Insider