The Big Takeaways for Business from Debate Night

Last night’s presidential debate was long on memorable moments, but skimped on detailed explanations about the candidates’ policy positions.Credit…Graham Dickie/The New York Times

A test of performance

For business leaders and others, last night’s presidential debate was more notable for how the candidates performed rather than for the policy measures they discussed.

Still, the 90-minute clash between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump represented a key moment for many in the corporate world and beyond: How would the Democratic standard-bearer fare onstage? And would the two candidates shed more light on their economic and business stances?

“This was a debate of social media memes more than in-depth policy analysis,” Paul Donovan, the chief global economist for UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote to clients on Wednesday, summing up the discourse. Most of the reactions centered on Harris goading Trump into traps, including about the crowd size at his rallies and his standing with world leaders.

Still, there were moments when economic and business policy came up. Among them:

• Harris attacked Trump on his favoring of increased tariffs on Chinese-made goods, which he has said would raise trillions of dollars, as a “Trump sales tax” that would be borne by middle-class families.

• Trump attacked Harris over the sharp rise in inflation during the Biden administration, calling it a “disaster for people, for the middle class, for every class.”

• Harris denied that she would impose a ban on fracking — an important issue to voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where the debate was held — continuing to walk back comments she made as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2019.

Many, including some Trump supporters, thought Harris won the debate. On the Harris side, Aaron Levie, the C.E.O. of the software company Box, wrote on X: “Kamala is doing a great job at reinforcing the pro business message and policies right now. She’s a centrist.”

Elon Musk, one of the former president’s most prominent backers, wrote, “While I don’t think the debate hosts were fair to @realDonaldTrump, @KamalaHarris exceeded most people’s expectations tonight.” He later added that Trump would better help business and streamline government.

Harris won a prominent endorsement that touched on policy as well. In announcing her support of Harris after the debate, Taylor Swift cited A.I.-generated images falsely claiming that the pop star was backing Trump. “It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Swift wrote on Instagram (where she has 283 million followers).