After the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, America’s business leaders came out strongly in their criticism of Donald Trump. Now – as the Harris campaign brands Trump a “fascist” and Trump threatens retribution against “the enemy from within” – there appears to be a conspiracy of silence.

In fact, as the nation heads to the polls in an election that is too close to call, some of America’s most powerful chief executives appear to be cozying up to Trump again.

In public, only a small handful of business leaders are backing Trump. In private it’s a different story. At least, that’s how Trump is telling it.

Over the last few weeks, he’s bragged about the warm reception he’s receiving from CEOs. At a recent rally, he said that the Google chief, Sundar Pichai, had called him with praise about his photoshoot at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. The Apple chief, Tim Cook, reportedly called him to discuss the company’s legal troubles in Europe. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg was said to have called him over the summer after his assassination attempt.

And then, after years of fielding attacks from Trump over his ownership of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos blocked the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. Bezos said the paper wouldn’t do endorsements, as it had for half a century, to avoid perceptions of media bias.

It all seems like an about-face compared with a few years ago, when the same executives were praising Joe Biden’s win and openly criticizing Trump over the January 6 attack.

And Trump is very much the same person: he has continued to insist that the insurrection was actually a “day of love” and has made clear he will not accept the results of the election if he loses. “That’s the only way we’re gonna lose, because they cheat,” he said at a rally in September.

But what may appear as silence from America’s chief executives is actually restraint, according to some in the business community.

“They have an obligation to work with whomever is president, so they don’t want to come across as hostile and unable to work with him,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale professor who tracks the political preferences of C-suite executives. “But what is an undeniable historic fact is that there has never been in American history a less popular president with the nation’s business leadership than Donald Trump.”

In an open letter in support of Harris, a dozen former CEOs brought together by Sonnenfeld said Trump was “anti-business”.

“While each of us has different political affiliations, we are coming together to vote for Kamala Harris in this presidential election – and we believe the majority of sitting CEOs will do the same,” the letter reads.

Sonnenfeld pointed out that executives historically support Republican candidates. But only one CEO in the Fortune 100 has publicly endorsed Trump: Elon Musk.

“He’s got one. That’s pretty telling,” Sonnenfeld said. “John McCain and Mitt Romney had half of the business community. In 2016, it fell to zero.”

Trump’s first term was a boon for corporations, who saved $240bn from 2018 to 2021 thanks to the former president’s cuts to corporate tax, which he says he will lower again in a second term.

But Sonnenfeld said many business leaders were not fans of Trump’s plans for tariffs and for mass deportations, two major policies he’s been touting on the campaign trail, along with possible politicization of the Federal Reserve.

“They hate the way Trump creates wedge issues and false propaganda to divide the nation, whether it’s their personal values … in institutions, or just the belief that the free enterprise system can’t function if there isn’t residual trust in communities,” he said.

Daniella Ballou-Aares, chief executive of the Leadership Now Project, said many of Trump’s wealthy supporters aren’t actually sitting executives.

“The press narrative focuses on a very short list of men on both sides who are just not indicative [of the climate],” Ballou-Aares said. “There are many, many different kinds of groups coming together on the business side” who are supporting Harris, she said.

But leaders have to tread a fine line, especially because Trump is known to be unashamedly transactional. In May, he stunned a group of oil and gas executives when he told them they should be donating $1bn to his campaign – what would actually be a “deal” considering he would reverse environmental rules and would lower taxes. During his previous term, he rewarded his closest supporters with a direct line to the White House.

Trump has vowed to unleash retribution on those who speak against him should he take office again, and executives don’t want to get their company on the receiving end of a Trump backlash. Some have already experienced the tidal wave of abuse that can be triggered from just seeming to be “woke” – taking on Trump head-on is a business gamble they have so far avoided.

“If they were these billionaires just investing their own wallet, then you can be more flamboyant. But they have custodial oversight for all the stakeholders in their communities, and their workforce and their customers,” Sonnenfeld said. “They know this is a very divided country, and they don’t want to trigger anything unnecessarily.”

It’s also a different political environment compared with the 2020 election, when the Covid pandemic still kept many under lockdown, and the Black Lives Matter protests from the summer had forced a racial reckoning throughout the business world. When Biden became president, companies saw fewer demands from consumers and employees to speak out. Instead, companies have seen more backlash from conservative groups.

Corporations are people too – at least according to the supreme court – and it seems Trump’s bullying has silenced them.

“I think the danger of the last few years is that it’s been more than just quiet, it’s been chilled,” said Elizabeth Doty, director of the corporate political taskforce at the Erb Institute at the University of Michigan. “Companies have been really worried about making commitments … that they couldn’t back up, or that would expose them to attacks, legal and reputational.”

Doty said that where companies were once reactive to politics, leaders are trying to make their companies more adaptive to the political climate – an evolution that still has people wondering what many companies stand for.

“They’re trying to position themselves as politically neutral as a principled stance, but it’s coming across as opportunistic. It invites them to become more of a political football,” Doty said. When thinking about how companies can come out on political and social issues, Doty and other researchers have found that it’s important that companies emphasize upholding institutions, like government and the election process, even when they are trying to remain politically neutral.

When Bezos published his op-ed explaining why he blocked the Post’s presidential endorsement less than two weeks away from the election, he referred to it as a “principled decision”.

“I assure you that my views here are, in fact, principled,” he wrote. But in the op-ed, Bezos was not clear on exactly what his principles are, only that he believes that Americans are distrustful of the media.

“Being principled means being clear about what you’re for, not who you are against,” Doty said. “There’s always a way to do that that is not antagonistic to a candidate.”

While the pre-election period is a sensitive time to take political stances, the post-election story – once the results are starting to become clear – will be different for business leaders.

“They’re all poised and ready to jump into action, as they’ve done before, should there be a catastrophic tantrum,” Sonnenfeld said.

Ballou-Aares with the Leadership Now Project gathered signatures from dozens of business leaders calling on candidates to comply with election laws and accept the legitimacy of the election.

“We need to make sure there’s a very broad coalition to support the legitimacy of the election process itself,” Ballou-Aares said. “If we’re in a situation where we’re in a closely contested election, there will be efforts to weaken the coalition.”

Public silence and private politicking makes business sense now. Should Trump win next week, corporate America will face a bigger test.