About those Carrier jobs in Indianapolis.

The president-elect’s move to save 1,100 jobs at a Carrier furnace plant in Indiana has been a political winner, even if it has raised concerns among economists on the left and the right.

Now the chief executive of United Technologies, Carrier’s parent company, says in the end, many of those jobs (he put the figure at 800) likely will fall to automation rather than Mexico.

In an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer, the C.E.O., Greg Hayes was blunt.

“We’re gonna make up $16 million investment in that factory in Indianapolis to automate to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive. Now is it as cheap as moving to Mexico with lower cost labor? No. But we will make that plant competitive just because we’ll make the capital investments there.” MR. CRAMER: “Right.” MR. HAYES: “But what that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.”

He also confirmed that he feared standing up to the president-elect could be very costly to his conglomerate, which includes a lot of defense work.

“There was a cost as we thought about keeping the Indiana plant open. At the same time — and I’ll tell you this because you and I — we know each other, but I was born at night but not last night. I also know that about 10 percent of our revenue comes from the U.S. government.”

Trump fires at business; business holds back.