WEF 2022: Davos will be short of a few billionaires as well as the snow

WEF 2022: Davos will be short of a few billionaires as well as the snow

Davos: Ask some of the world's rich and powerful descending on Davos this week and they'll tell you: After a two-year pandemic-enforced hiatus from the Swiss ski resort, the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum just isn't going to be the same. The guest-list is hundreds of names shorter, with many titans of finance conspicuously absent. The chiefs of Goldman Sachs Group and JPMorgan Chase & Co. aren't going. Neither is BlackRock Inc.'s Larry Fink or Steve Schwarzman, the private equity billionaire. Also missing is the usual contingent of super-wealthy Russian tycoons - several who attended in 2020 are now sanctioned - and many of their Chinese counterparts. Even the timing and weather are off: Instead of the usual snow and crisp January air, the forecast for the May Davos is rain. (The WEF included umbrellas rather than crampons in the welcome pack for delegates.) The lingering pandemic, rampant inflation, tumbling stock markets and the war in Ukraine mark a bleak backdrop for the five-day event. Looming over it all is this year's theme, which has an ominous ring: ‘History at a Turning Point’. "I just don't think the excitement is there," said Wendy Craft, chief of staff at