Some of the biggest names in American tech visited New York’s Trump Tower on Wednesday for an audience with President-elect Donald Trump.
Apple’s Tim Cook, whose company has been repeatedly criticized by the enigmatic Republican, was joined by Tesla and Space X pioneer Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Alphabet’s Larry Page and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg.
Musk, along with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, has been appointed to a newly-created Strategic and Policy Forum, which will hold its first meeting at the White House in February, following Trump’s inauguration.
During Wednesday’s summit, Trump hailed the “incredible innovation” of America’s tech companies and said he was “here to help you folks do well.”
He said (via BBC): “We want you to keep going with the incredible innovation. There’s nobody like you in the world.
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“You’ll call my people, you’ll call me. It doesn’t make any difference. We have no formal chain of command around here.”
Trump has been critical of American companies manufacturing their goods outside of the United States. He has promised to place a 35% levy on companies seeking to repatriate products.
He was also hugely critical of Apple for failing to comply with FBI demands to unlock the iPhone of a terrorist.
Related: What did Cook really tell Apple employees after Trump win?
Meanwhile, Trump also has historical beef with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, claiming the online retailer is “getting away with murder tax-wise.”
Trump also claimed Bezos is “worried about me” because “he thinks I would go after him for antitrust because he’s got a huge antitrust problem. Amazon is controlling so much of what they’re doing … What he’s got is a monopoly and he wants to make sure I don’t get in.”
The next 4 years (at least) should be interesting.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
