CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Tesla and Space -CEO Elon Musk take part in the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump as US President of the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, in Washington, is sworn in. DC, January 20, 2025.
Saul Loeb | About Reuters
While Mettler-Toledo'S earnings sound on February 7 asked the managers a flood of questions about a key topic: tariffs.
The Ohio -based manufacturer of industrial scales and laboratory equipment had already opened the call by dismantling the expected effects of President Donald Trump's trading policy. However, when the event switched to the question-and-answer part, the inquiries from analysts who requested further details about possible tariffs became constant.
“The uncertainty remains in many of our core markets and the global economy,” said Shawn Vadala, Chief Financial Officer, when calling. “Geopolitical tensions remain increased and include the potential for new tariffs that we have not taken into account in our instructions.”
Mettler-Toledo's experience was not unique. America's largest companies are flooded with inquiries about how or whether Trump's Salve of Promises on topics ranging from international trade to immigration and diversity will change companies.
A CNBC analysis of the profit calls of S&P 500From 2012, the Listed companies show that several core issues associated with Trump's guidelines appear in an increasing clip. “Take tariff”. Only a few a few weeks in 2025 the frequency of the word and its variations of profit calls reached the highest level since 2020 – the last full year of Trump's first term.
In addition, new acronyms and phrases such as “Gulf of America” and “Doge” have found their way into these meetings, while the business world evaluates what Trump's return to power means for them.
Strangely enough, Trump himself did not mention any mentions about these calls. Many uses of the word “Trump” in transcripts checked by CNBC referred to the verb rather than the president.
A sign in front of a facility, which is occupied by Mettler-Toledo International in Columbia, Maryland, on March 8, 2020.
Kristoffer Trippplaar | Sipa USA | AP
However, an overview of Call transcripts shows how keywords that are connected to Trump's guidelines have quickly become commonplace. With the first win of 2025 more than 75%, the comments offer an early insight into the way these companies look at the new administration.
Tariff
One of the most discussed guidelines was Trump's tariff plans. The president briefly implemented 25% taxes to imports to the USA from Mexico and Canada – and then postponed. It also hit a 10% tax separately to China and imposed aluminum and steel tariffs. On Thursday, he discussed a plan to impose retaliation tariffs on land to land.
In view of the uncertainty, it is no surprise that the tariffs are a hot topic. The topic created more than 190 calls from S&P 500 Companies in 2025 to make it up to date to see the highest proportion in half a decade.
The frequency increased at the end of last year when Trump's return to the White House became clear. About half of the calls in 2024, in which the form of the word mentioned, took place in the fourth quarter, according to a CNBC analysis of data from Factset, a market research service.
“Studying customs duties was at the top of the list of things we did.” Petroleum marathon CEO Maryann Mannen said on February 4 of the Energy Company on February 4.
Several companies stated that they did not take into account potential effects of these levies in their instructions and referred uncertainties about which orders are actually moved in motion. Others are simply not sure: at Martin Marietta MaterialsCFO James Nickolas said that the supplier's profits either benefit from this or could take a hit from tariffs, depending on which form ultimately comes into force.
While Genac According to CEO Aaron Jagdfeld, how these import taxes could influence the future service, the generator manufacturer is ready to alleviate the financial hit by reducing costs elsewhere and increasing prices. Camden Property Trust CEO Richard Campo said that a corporate analysis shows that the proposed tariffs would increase the costs of materials from Canada and Mexico such as wood and electrical boxes. These comments offer support for the idea that Trump's tariffs can increase consumer prices and fan inflation.
Aaron Jagdfeld, CEO, generac
Scott Mlyn | CNBC
Zebra technologies CFO Nathan Winters said that price increases could help reduce the profit pressure. Auto -part maker BorgwarnerIn the meantime, another year of declining demand in certain markets, which CFO Craig Aaron was partly due to the potential headwind of these taxes.
Cisco'S R. Scott Herren agreed with other managers about the lack of clarity and described the tariff situation as “dynamic” on the profit sound of networking equipment maker on Wednesday. Nevertheless, the CFO said that the company had planned a certain differences in Trump's tariff proposals in order to be effective and expects the costs to be increased.
“We have triggered several scenarios and steps that we could do, depending on what actually comes into force,” he said.
immigration
The topic of immigration has been involved in the highest proportion of calls since 2017.
Trump promised mass deportations from immigrants without papers during his second term. Immigration of immigration was a central component of Trump's political news since he ran for his first term, partly to “build” the wall between the USA and Mexico. Critics claim that his plans could shock the labor market and lead to higher inflation.
The immigration expectations tend to tick a new administration in the first year, as CNBC data show. But in 2025 the first years of former President Joe Biden's term and the second term of office of former President Barack Obama exceeded, which underlines the role of Trump in the collection of the problem in US companies.
Some companies grouped immigration with tariffs as a driver with broader unpredictability within the economy. Nicholas Pinchuk, CEO from Toolmaker Snappingdescribed anecdotes strong demand for repair services from their customers, but said that they were still stressed by red flags in the economic background.
“It is clear that the technicians are in a good position. But that doesn't make them immune to macro uncertainty around them: persistent wars, immigration disputes, persistent inflation,” said Pinchuk. “Although the choice is in the rear -view mirror and the new team may be more geared towards expanding the business, there is a quick fire of new initiatives. … It is difficult not to be sure what is going on.”
Companies in various sectors asked questions about the changes in the composition of the American population. AT & TPresent Verizon And T-mobile All questions asked whether immigration migration would affect the demand for certain telephone plans. Michael Manelis, Operations boss at Apartment Manager Equity livingIn response to an immigration investigation, said that the company had not seen the rental breaks of deporting tenants.
On the southern California market Hamid Moghadam, CEO of real estate developers prologsaid that deportations reduce the workers' pool and in turn increase the employment costs in the region. This can tighten the price pressure that is already expected because the Los Angeles Community will be rebuilt after the forest fires in January.
Tyson Foods employee
Greg Smith | Corbis Saba | Getty pictures
Other companies insisted that deportations would not create a shortage of labor for their business, since all their employees are legally authorized. Such a company, chicken producer Tyson Foodssaid his factories were not visited by the US immigration and customs authority, or a decline in employee participation was found.
“We are confident that we can continue to run our business successfully,” said CEO Donnie King on February 3.
Doge and the Golf
The topics that have been relevant to the office with Trump's return to the office have already started to act.
Doge – the acronym for the new advisory group, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, directed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk – was mentioned at more than 15 calls until Friday morning. Doge brought Wall Street to the alarm when the investors wonder whether contracts between public companies and federal authorities could be in the hackklotz because Musk's team lowered the expenses.
During a visit to the Oval Office on February 11th, Mosch tore Eisenberg'S Mine, which stores government pension records as an example of inefficiency. The CEO Bill Meaney said, however, that the company's profit call that the advance on the tightening can actually benefit other parts of its business.
“Since the government is still more efficient, we see this as a continued opportunity for the company,” said Meaney.
A man leaves the Iron Mountain Inc. Data storage in Boyers, Pennsylvania, USA on Tuesday, February 13, 2018. Federal government.
Stephanie Strasburg | Bloomberg | Getty pictures
Managers at PalantirThe defensive technology company, which was a top performer in the S&P 500 in 2024, hopefully. Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar described Palantir's work with the government as “operational” and “valuable” and said that he was confident that Doge engineers will be able to recognize this for change “.
“I think Doge will bring the government of meritocracy and transparency, and that is exactly our commercial business,” said Sankar while calling the company on February 3. “The commercial market is meritocratic and transparent, and you see the results we have in this type of environment. And that is the basis for our optimism.”
He noticed some concerns among other state software providers and called these agreements “Holy Cows of the deep state” during the call.
Elsewhere, the so -called Gulf of America was a point of deviation after Trump's executive regulation was renamed as a Gulf of Mexico. Chevron Use the nickname Gulf of America repeated in his profit publication and when he called with analysts at the end of January. But Exxon mobilewho kept his degree on the same day and instead described himself on the water as the Gulf of Mexico.