Tim Cook is one of a number of tech executives who will meet with President-elect Donald Trump this week, a new report claims.
The meeting will take place at Trump Tower in Manhattan on Wednesday, and will also be attended by Alphabet CEO Larry Page, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, alongside a handful of others.
The invites were sent out from Trump’s chief of staff Reince Priebus and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and are part of an initiative being pushed by investor and Trump supporter Peter Thiel to get the incoming President to reach out to the tech community.
Tim Cook and Donald Trump were on opposite sides of this year’s electoral race. Cook criticized Trump throughout the election cycle. A Hillary Clinton supporter who hosted fundraisers and was even considered as a possible VP, Cook was reportedly part of a group of billionaires, tech CEOs and politicians who flew to a private island resort to discuss plans for helping defeat Trump.
In the aftermath of Trump’s election, Cook sent a letter to Apple staffers saying that while there are “uncertainties ahead, you can be confident that Apple’s North Star hasn’t changed.”
Trump’s suggested policies have so far been a mixed bag for Apple. On the one hand, Trump has talked about giving companies incentives to bring their overseas cash piles back home, which is an idea Cook has been outspokenly in favor of in the past.
At the same time, the possibility of extra tariffs placed on Chinese imports could well hurt Apple, particularly if the Chinese government decides to hurt American brands in China as a result.
Cook isn’t the only Silicon Valley exec to have been opposed to Donald Trump. Entrepreneur, VC and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman was a big Trump critic is not attending the event this week. The same is true of Mark Cuban and Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman.
Others including Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield and Dropbox CEO Drew Houston have also declined the invitiation for a variety of reasons.
Source: Recode
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
9 responses to “Tim Cook will meet with President-elect Donald Trump this week”
It’s interesting that Meg Whitman won’t be attending, and she’s a Republican and HP Enterprise just laid off some employees and HP Inc. is going to be laying off employees in the next two years.
Linkedin just got bought out by Microsoft, so there is probably no need for Hoffman to show up.
She’s a republican who hitched her wagon to Hillary’s. She hosted campaign events for her and blasted Trump continuously. Her political acumen is just as inept as her business one.
disappointed that Mr. Cook is attending.
Actually, I am proud that it is because he is engaging with the enemy of the free market Capitalist system.
Engaging the enemy? Sorry Greg, he’s just doing what any business leader would do when invited. Obama signed over 23,000 regulations at a cost of $100 Billion a year to Americans. Who’s the real enemy?
Why are you disappointed? Obama kissed Castro’s testículos. Obama gave Iran the bomb and billions of dollars. Were you disappointed then?
Let’s stick to the facts.
Open new market for business and tourism. No more propping up Cuba by expatriates sending money to relatives on the island.
Settled the long running dispute about state assets seized in the 1970’s. Without access to the banking system and markets, Iran can’t do much with money anyway.
You can pound sand all you want. Facts are facts and they still mean something.
If there is anything we have learned is never take Donnie’s word for it. For many people, facts don’t matter. Neither does integrity, ethics, or just good hard work to achieve a goal. For eight years, they have been blaming Obama for everything that is wrong in their miserable lives. In four years time, they will still be poor and blaming Obama.
Who’s “they?” Trump will not blame Obama, like your idol did for 6 years.