After some months of contention with the denizens of Silicon Valley, Donald Trump had his big meeting with the biggest names in tech yesterday in New York City at Trump Tower.
On the guest list were Apple CEO Tim Cook, Alphabet CEO Larry Page, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt, Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, Vice President-elect Mike Pence and three of Trump’s children.
The gathering was filmed for the first few introductory meetings — though cameras were cleared from the room as discussion got underway.
What was discussed?
That remains something of a mystery — there was no formal agenda for the meeting, though the expected focus was jobs. Trump also reportedly made it clear that his phone lines were open to them.
“Anything we can do to help this go along, and we’re going to be there for you,” Trump said. “You’ll call my people, you’ll call me. It doesn’t make any difference. We have no formal chain of command around here.”
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Trump also noted that though there may have been some skepticism, his administration will be a strong boon for innovators. “We’re going to make fair trade deals,” he said. “We’re going to make it a lot easier for you to trade across borders. There’s a lot of restrictions, a lot of problems that I think you see. And if you have any ideas on that, that would be great.”
