“Ah, Government Sachs!”
That’s the quip David Solomon encountered at the Milken Institute Global Conference this week, when another attendee realized he was speaking with the co-president of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
This year’s event, for which 4,500 of the world’s most influential people gathered in Beverly Hills, California, to swap notes on global economics and policy, made Wall Street’s political connections abundantly clear.
“You should all thank me for your bank stocks doing better,” former Goldman Sachs partner turned U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the packed Beverly Hilton ballroom Monday. “It’s a friendly room here.”
Investors, government officials and entertainment moguls convened at the storied hotel this week for the event, now in its 20th year. While ringmaster Mike Milken packs the schedule with panel sessions, many attendees also flock to meetings in private suites upstairs and evening cocktail parties at mansions in the hills of Los Angeles.
At an invitation-only event held by Bombardier Inc., guests mingled around a mock-up of a Challenger 350 business jet. A cheetah named Bahati made a celebrity appearance for 80 guests at a party hosted by EJF Philanthropies in a private home nearby.
“This is like a mini World Economic Forum -- like a mini Davos,” former Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday, hours before President George W. Bush addressed a lunch crowd.
Griffin Denied
Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, both of whom attended the conference in years past with little fanfare, drew packed ballrooms as they relayed their adventures in Donald Trump’s White House. Billionaire hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin, who arrived at Mnuchin’s session about 15 minutes late, was denied entry because the room was at capacity. “Did he say anything yet?” Griffin asked the security guard at the door.
At times the billionaire echo chamber sounded a bit off-key. Ross, discussing U.S. missile strikes on Syria, compared the event to entertainment for President Trump during dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping.