Having reached the top of a major corporation and amassed a fortune, chief executives often wonder: What’s next?

After Donald J. Trump, the answer may well be a run for the White House.

Mr. Trump had no political or military experience, the traditional routes to high political office. Virtually his only qualification was his business career, and a checkered one at that, considering his own brush with personal bankruptcy.

“There is this sense that if Trump got it, why shouldn’t they?” said David Gergen, co-director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and an adviser to four presidents. “They’ve been more successful, they have more experience, and they’ve run a public company, which is more equivalent to what a president does than a private company” like the Trump Organization.