When Democrats swept Congress in the midterms, executives in policy-sensitive industries had a choice: celebrate, hire lawyers, or keep a low profile. The Democrats’ midterm wins prompted many to recalibrate. According to a Fortune CEO Daily report, crisis communications firms fielded calls from clients in tech, crypto, manufacturing, health care, and law. Some clients were relieved; a health care company welcomed the prospect of restored insurance subsidies. Others were advised to focus on tax-advantaged savings accounts known as 530A accounts, or Trump Accounts.
Yet the most instructive signals from the election were not about which party controls Congress. They concerned two issues that business cannot afford to ignore: the local backlash against data centers and the pressure to address worker pay and financial security.
Data Center Resistance
Tech companies have invested billions in AI infrastructure, often in traditionally Republican states such as Texas and Ohio. But voters in 37 of 38 local ballot contests with completed counts supported measures to block data center development. That resistance could reduce the amount of planned capacity that comes online, potentially slowing AI adoption and development.
The report suggests that business leaders must confront both the real and perceived costs of data centers. It also notes that such facilities have become a proxy for anxiety about AI-driven job losses. Many CEOs say they aim for augmentation rather than elimination, but that argument is difficult to sustain when companies like Microsoft offer buyouts to 60,000 employees.
Wages and Affordability
On affordability, the report advises CEOs to examine real wages, which have largely stagnated in recent months as prices have climbed. It points to Jason Buechel, CEO of Whole Foods and vice president of Amazon Worldwide Grocery Stores, who recently pledged $230 million to offer higher pay, benefits, and college perks to more than 100,000 Whole Foods workers.
The broader lesson is to pay attention to what really matters. Tim Gerend, CEO of Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual, offered a counterpoint to the election post-mortems. He is thinking about AI and a changing policy environment, but he is more focused on opportunities to help people build financial security at a time when government seems less able to meet those needs, regardless of who holds power.
Gerend said younger people feel as though no one is looking out for them. He added that individuals bear more responsibility for their own retirement security than ever before, and that they will not find it in crypto, prediction markets, or leveraged ETFs.
Running a 170-year-old mutual company might appear to grant him the luxury of a long-term view. But Gerend said, “we don’t have the luxury of being slow … in an AI world, the shot clock on everything is shorter.” As for building trust, he said, “In order to be trusted, you’ve got to do things that are trustworthy.”