CEOs of top US firms met privately to discuss what to do if Trump's refusal to concede to Biden becomes a threat to democracy

• More than 24 CEOs of Fortune 500 firms met on November 6 to discuss what to do if President Donald Trump refused to leave office on January 20, The Associated Press reported on Friday.
• The CEOs — from companies in finance, manufacturing, retail, and media — said Trump had the right to pursue legal challenges alleging voter fraud, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Yale professor who organized the meeting, told the AP.
• But they also spoke about making statements and pressuring GOP legislators should Trump's refusal to concede threaten a peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden, Sonnenfeld said.

Three days after Election Day, CEOs of major US companies met privately to talk about what they would do if President Donald Trump refused to leave the White House, The Associated Press reported on Friday.

More than 24 CEOs participated in an hourlong videoconference on November 6 to discuss taking collective action should Trump's refusal to concede to President-elect Joe Biden become a threat to democracy, the AP reported.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Yale management professor who convened the meeting, told the AP that the business leaders were from Fortune 500 companies in finance, manufacturing, retail, and media. Sonnenfeld said he wouldn't identify them because they attended on the condition that their names remain confidential.

The executives agreed that the president had the right to pursue legal challenges alleging voter fraud, Sonnenfeld told the AP. But they also discussed making statements if Trump tried to disrupt a peaceful transition, he said.

They also talked about putting pressure on state GOP legislators who might try to redirect electoral votes to Trump, he said. The New York Times reported on Thursday that Trump had asked aides about such a plan to subvert the Electoral College.

"They're all fine with him taking an appeal to the court, to a judicial process. They didn't want to deny him that. But that doesn't stop the transition," Sonnenfeld told the AP. "They said if that makes people feel better, it doesn't hurt anything to let that grind through."

Many of the executives raised concerns about Trump's behavior after Timothy Snyder, a Yale historian and the author of "On Tyranny," spoke about "the history of democracies dying after elections" and about GOP legislators possibly changing the Electoral College result, the AP report said.

The AP said that Richard Pildes, a constitutional-law professor at New York University who participated in the conference, and another CEO who was there confirmed Sonnenfeld's account.

Insider and Decision Desk HQ called the 2020 election for Biden the same day as the meeting.

Read more: San Francisco has enacted a new 'CEO tax.' It's for companies that 'overpay' their CEOs.

A Saturday statement from the Business Roundtable, a group of executives representing US companies such as Apple and Walmart, congratulated Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and echoed the remarks at the CEOs' videoconference about Trump's legal rights, the AP said. But it added that "there is no indication that any" of the legal challenges "would change the outcome."

Sonnenfeld told the AP that he had also spoken with six or seven CEOs who said that if any "seditious riots" were to happen at Trump rallies or if Trump were to mass-fire more officials, they would want to meet again to discuss how to act faster.

"They thought it could have a very devastating effect upon on markets, on public trust in the process," Sonnenfeld said, adding that the CEOs would act "to make sure that the Republican elected officials do their jobs and then be patriots and respect the process."