Donald Trump Strikes Conciliatory Tone in Meeting With Tech Executives

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President-elect Donald Trump struck a conciliatory tone at the start of a high-profile meeting with top tech executives Dec 14, telling the Silicon Valley leaders that his goal is “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. “You call my people, you call me. It doesn’t make any difference.” President-elect 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.” Trump has been a persistent critic of past trade deals, including the pending Trans Pacific Partnership.

At the meeting, 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 Chief Executive Larry Page, Apple 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 CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, and chairman of Google parent Alphabet Eric Schmidt, apparently.


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