Top Tech Executives to Meet Trump to Talk Jobs, Regulations -- 3rd Update
December 14 2016 - 3:28PM
Dow Jones News
By Jack Nicas and Rolfe Winkler
President-elect Donald Trump struck a conciliatory tone at the
start of a high-profile meeting with top tech executives Wednesday,
telling the Silicon Valley leaders that he is there "to help you
folks do well."
"We want you to keep going with the incredible innovation...
Anything we can do to help this go along we're going to be there
for you," he told the tech executives, according to video of the
start of the meeting. "You call my people, you call me. It doesn't
make any difference."
Mr. Trump also told the executives that he would "do fair-trade
deals" and said he was "going to make it a lot easier for you to
trade across borders." Mr. Trump has been a persistent critic of
past trade deals, including the pending Trans Pacific
Partnership.
At the meeting, Mr. Trump was flanked by Vice President-elect
Mike Pence and billionaire investor Peter Thiel, who is advising
the president-elect. Tech executives present included Alphabet Inc.
Chief Executive Larry Page, Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft
CEO Satya Nadella.
About a dozen executives were scheduled to attend the meeting.
The attendee list is a Who's Who of tech, including Amazon.com Inc.
CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook Inc. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl
Sandberg, Tesla Motors Inc. CEO Elon Musk, and chairman of Google
parent Alphabet Inc. Eric Schmidt, people familiar with the plans
said.
The CEOs of Intel Corp., International Business Machines Corp.,
Oracle Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Palantir Technologies Inc. are
also expected to attend, the people said.
Mr. Trump is expected to emphasize job creation and making
government more efficient. Following the meeting, the
president-elect is expected to talk with Messrs. Cook and Musk in
separate one-on-one sessions.
Several CEOs declined to comment as they arrived for the
meeting, including Messrs. Bezos and Krzanich and IBM's Ginni
Rometty. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, said "I know the
president-elect is looking forward to welcoming some of the leading
tech CEOs in America to Trump Tower to talk about how we can grow
jobs in high-tech all across the country."
Tech lobbyists, lawyers and analysts say the companies'
principal goal is preserving the status quo. The past eight years
under President Barack Obama have been an era of tremendous growth
and record profits for Silicon Valley, aided by favorable federal
policies, such as free trade, relatively weak antitrust enforcement
and net neutrality, a policy that requires internet providers to
treat all web traffic equally.
But Mr. Trump and his team have hinted at changes that worry
many big tech firms, such as trade restrictions, stricter
immigration policy and tougher antitrust enforcement.
The jobs discussion could also put the tech giants on the
defensive. Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook are five
of the nation's seven most-valuable companies and together employ
roughly 600,000 workers. But they employ fewer people --
particularly in the U.S. -- than many less-valuable firms. Wal-Mart
Stores Inc., for instance, employs 1.5 million people in the U.S.
alone. Mr. Trump has criticized Apple, among others, for making
nearly all of its products overseas.
Wednesday's meeting was brokered by billionaire tech investor
Peter Thiel and Mr. Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.
Their presence at the meeting could help smooth relations between
Mr. Trump and tech companies he has scolded.
Mr. Thiel -- among the few prominent tech titans who backed Mr.
Trump -- was the first outside investor in Facebook and is now a
board member there. He is a former business partner and friend of
Mr. Musk. He could serve as an advocate for the tech industry,
particularly on subjects like entrepreneurism and antitrust
enforcement.
Mr. Kushner and his wife, Mr. Trump's daughter Ivanka, have also
sought counsel in tech circles on how the administration can work
with the industry, according to people familiar with the
matter.
The Trump transition team, meanwhile, said it has added
prominent Silicon Valley executives to a separate group that will
advise the president-elect on business and economic policy. The
President's Strategic and Policy Forum initially included only one
tech executive, Ms. Rometty of IBM.
On Wednesday, the transition team said it added Mr. Musk and
Uber Technologies Inc. CEO Travis Kalanick, along with PepsiCo
chief Indra Nooyi, to the group.
Write to Jack Nicas at jack.nicas@wsj.com and Rolfe Winkler at
rolfe.winkler@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 14, 2016 15:13 ET (20:13 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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