Historically, Goldman Sachs and Amazon are known for extremely careful and policed corporate messaging. But in 2020, the example of the tweeter-in-chief (and, clearly, the specter of Senator Sanders competing in the general election) seems to have loosened their Twitter fingers…

Jon Meacham, a presidential historian, said that the business leaders of the United States have long taken cues about how to behave in public from the staging of the presidency. At shareholder events, for example, he said, everything from the podium to the branded backdrop is often staged to look “like a place where a president of the United States could plausibly give a talk.”

“Prior to Trump there was a visual vernacular of dignity and gravitas that corporate America borrowed from the presidency,” Mr. Meacham said. “And now, as the president has become a Hobbesian bully online, they’re borrowing that. Because at least in their minds, that’s where people are at.”