The Musk empire—Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI combined—dominated Davos 2026 corporate coverage with 443 articles quoting company executives. That's nearly double the next competitor. But this wasn't a pure AI story: finance giants JPMorgan and BlackRock took spots #2 and #3.
The Rankings (by quoted articles)
- 1.Tesla/SpaceX/xAI — 443 articles
- 2.JPMorgan Chase — 238 articles
- 3.BlackRock — 224 articles
- 4.NVIDIA — 224 articles
- 5.Anthropic — 125 articles
Microsoft (115), DeepMind (99), and Amazon (91) filled spots 6-8. OpenAI came in at #9 with 74 articles.
Four AI-focused companies made the top 10 (Tesla/SpaceX/xAI, NVIDIA, Anthropic, Microsoft). But JPMorgan and BlackRock—finance, not tech—took silver and bronze.
Volume vs Sentiment
Coverage volume and tone tell different stories:
| Company | Articles | Positive | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla/SpaceX/xAI | 443 | 53% | 10% |
| NVIDIA | 224 | 63% | 6% |
| Anthropic | 125 | 41% | 4% |
| Microsoft | 115 | 48% | 1% |
| OpenAI | 74 | 30% | 17% |
OpenAI had both the lowest volume AND the worst sentiment among major AI players.
The Musk Factor
The combined coverage of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI reflects a single reality: Elon Musk. His political proximity to Trump, his AI ambitions through xAI, and his aerospace ventures through SpaceX all fed into a unified media narrative.
We track these as one entity because the coverage treats them that way. When Musk speaks at Davos, he's not speaking for one company—he's speaking for an empire spanning AI, automotive, and aerospace.
Musk himself had 4,940 quotes with 47% positive coverage—controversial but dominant.
The Real AI Winner: Jensen Huang
NVIDIA's CEO had the best numbers of any tech executive:
- 1,799 personal quotes — significant CEO presence
- 96.7% positive sentiment — near-perfect coverage
- 3.3% negative — minimal hostile coverage
Note: Sentiment percentages are based on our LLM classifier. Edge cases near 0% or 100% may reflect sample characteristics rather than universal sentiment.
What It Means
The Musk empire's political connections beat NVIDIA's chips for raw coverage. And OpenAI, despite its public profile, finished behind Anthropic on both volume and sentiment.