We went to Milken, where the rich were worrying in public — and partying in private

Business Insider

08-05-2025

If you closed your eyes and only listened to the panels at this year's Milken Global Conference, you'd think the country was on the verge of a recession.
One of the most common words spoken by executives and investors was "uncertainty." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's speech — not talks with Peyton Manning or Tony Blair or Henry Kravis — was the hottest ticket in town, with attendees lining up an hour out for his opening remarks.
Pessimism about the US was so high that professional investors are looking to put money to work in Europe, long ignored by American firms because of the continent's slow growth relative to US companies.
"The brand is definitely tarnished now," State Street CEO Ron O'Hanley said, echoing comments made by Citadel's founder, Ken Griffin, and Apollo CEO Marc Rowan.
"The real question is whether this is permanent," O'Hanley, whose firm manages $4.7 trillion, said on a panel about the macro environment.
The " animal spirits" energy radiating off the investor class and C-suites in Davos was nowhere to be found on the Milken stages in Beverly Hills, California, thanks to President Donald Trump's tariff policies, which have upended global equity and bond markets.
"The mood was unbelievably optimistic" in Switzerland, Katie Koch, the CEO of the $195 billion credit investment manager TCW, said while sitting next to O'Hanley onstage, but it's "the opposite now."
The gloom onstage didn't affect the mood
The Beverly Hilton was packed with upward of 5,000 attendees this year, the conference's biggest showing since 2019, despite ticket prices starting at $25,000 apiece.
Lines snaked around the lobby for top speakers like Jessica Alba — even the tennis star Novak Djokovic was seen waiting to get in.
Attendees competed not only for seats but also for invitations to the most coveted after-parties, held at the members-only Bird Streets Club and restaurants such as Funke, Cipriani, and AOC. One of the hardest invitations to get was a dinner with Bessent on Sunday night.
Walking around the ritzy Beverly Hills hotel and speaking with attendees in the conference's wellness garden (featuring "puppy playtime" and "nervous system reset" chairs) or at the numerous after-parties hosted by banks and private equity giants, we found the mood was much more positive.
"This isn't the type of food you'd see at a reception during a recession," one partygoer said Monday evening as a platter of tuna tartare passed by. The person, who has been investing in private markets for decades, said he wasn't worried about the economy until after-parties put a limit on the number of drinks each person could get from the bar.
People were encouraged by Bessent's comments tying the tariffs to deregulation and tax cuts. While many asset managers are not deploying capital, they're still fundraising, and meetings with representatives from Middle East sovereign wealth funds were some of the toughest to get. Once he was done speaking on a panel Monday afternoon, Saudi Arabia's minister of investment, Khalid Al-Falih, was swarmed by attendees.
There's also still plenty of optimism around tech and the promise of artificial intelligence, with self-driving Waymo cars dropping off many attendees and a fridge-sized box in the lobby allowing passersby the chance to speak with a hologram of the conference's host, Michael Milken, in several languages.
Elon Musk, who was a popular headliner last year, chose to stay behind closed doors this year, giving an interview to Milken in front of an invite-only crowd Sunday, someone who attended said. Milken also interviewed Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Tuesday in front of a packed audience.
At a party held Sunday at the billionaire Nicolas Berggruen's Beverly Hills mansion to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his tech philosophy magazine, Noema, interpretive dancers performed by the pool before the journalist Kara Swisher hosted a debate on whether AI makes us more human.
Perhaps one of the best metaphors for the mixed signals at the elite gathering is the bougie boxed lunches given out each day to the thousands of attendees: a seemingly austere offering that contained more luxurious options inside, such as salmon with tabbouleh and chocolate mousse.
The US, it seems, is still a hard habit for many investors to kick.
In the same breath that deep-pocketed panelists would criticize trade policies or talk up international opportunities, they'd mention the overwhelming size of the country's capital markets or innovative culture.
Johnson & Johnson CEO Joaquin Duato, a dual citizen of the US and Spain, paraphrased a Winston Churchill quote to describe businesses' thinking on the future of the world's largest economy: "Americans always do the right thing, after trying everything else."