Apple's Tim Cook among tech executives meeting with Donald Trump on Wednesday - report

Apple CEO Tim Cook will be among several high-profile tech executives attending a summit with U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump on Wednesday, taking place at Trump Tower in New York City, according to a report.

Invitations were sent out last week and less than a dozen people are attending — mostly executives from Silicon Valley, Re/code sources said over the weekend. Some others include Alphabet CEO Larry Page, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, and Oracle CEO Safra Catz. Catz confirmed her attendance in a statement.

"I plan to tell the President-Elect that we are with him and will help in any way we can," he said. "If he can reform the tax code, reduce regulation and negotiate better trade deals, the U.S. technology industry will be stronger and more competitive than ever."

Two other possible attendees are Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Of the two, only Bezos is said to have definitely received an invitation, despite his Washington Post regularly publishing exposes of Trump.

Invitations were allegedly sent out by Trump's chief of staff, Reince Preibus, as well as investor and supporter Peter Thiel, and Trump's advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Thiel and others on Trump's team are said to have had a hard time persuading tech executives to attend, given Trump's regular attacks against them during his presidential campaign.

Trump has taken opposing stances on issues like encryption, immigration, and sometimes social issues. With Apple, he has berated the company for not doing more manufacturing in the U.S., and once called on people to boycott Apple after it refused to write software allowing the FBI to bypass encryption on the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook.

The Re/code sources suggested that despite their reluctance, some tech executives may have had little choice but to go to the summit, since they've participated in such things before. Nevertheless, others aren't going, whether they're intentionally avoiding Trump or or simply received their invitations too late — some are only said to have been sent out late last week.

"I think my invite got lost in the mail," an anonymous executive claimed. "Of course, this kind of thing will never happen again as of January."

52 Comments

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flaneur 14 Years · 4525 comments

About 8 years ago

Tim Cook could hardly pass up a chance of trying to educate this naïf.

"Mr. Trump, America literally gave up on electronics manufacturing 40 years ago. It wasn't the unions, it wasn't low wages in Asia, it was America's lack of respect for good, efficient design. We lost solid-state radio, television, VCR, camcorder, digital camera and computer manufacturing to Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China. That's where the center of gravity has been for two generations. That's the structure in the galaxy of our technology. You can't import a galaxy to our shores. About the only thing we can make here are the cardboard boxes.

"But we can do the design, the manufacturing and marketing logistics, and the software. Apple has shown that no one else in the world can do that better than we can. That's why we are the most valuable company, yet we have no manufacturing to speak of, only partners. And if we get a cold, you will see the rest of the economy get pneumonia.

"Don't mess with our system. It's the best in the world, the most valuable. And we're just getting started."

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mattinoz 9 Years · 2491 comments

About 8 years ago

flaneur said:

Tim Cook could hardly pass up a chance of trying to educate this naïf.

"Mr. Trump, America literally gave up on electronics manufacturing 40 years ago. It wasn't the unions, it wasn't low wages in Asia, it was America's lack of respect for good, efficient design. We lost solid-state radio, television, VCR, camcorder, digital camera and computer manufacturing to Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China. That's where the center of gravity has been for two generations. That's the structure in the galaxy of our technology. You can't import a galaxy to our shores. About the only thing we can make here are the cardboard boxes.

"But we can do the design, the manufacturing and marketing logistics, and the software. Apple has shown that no one else in the world can do that better than we can. That's why we are the most valuable company, yet we have no manufacturing to speak of, only partners. And if we get a cold, you will see the rest of the economy get pneumonia.

"Don't mess with our system. It's the best in the world, the most valuable. And we're just getting started."

It would also interesting for Cook to take some Appstore developer payment numbers with him. I suspect they show Apple pays out higher per capta numbers in countries with universal health care. They should be a good indicator that small scale entrepreneurs happen were people only have to bet their house not their health to take a punt on their own idea.

🎄

flaneur 14 Years · 4525 comments

About 8 years ago

mattinoz said:

flaneur said:

Tim Cook could hardly pass up a chance of trying to educate this naïf.

"Mr. Trump, America literally gave up on electronics manufacturing 40 years ago. It wasn't the unions, it wasn't low wages in Asia, it was America's lack of respect for good, efficient design. We lost solid-state radio, television, VCR, camcorder, digital camera and computer manufacturing to Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China. That's where the center of gravity has been for two generations. That's the structure in the galaxy of our technology. You can't import a galaxy to our shores. About the only thing we can make here are the cardboard boxes.

"But we can do the design, the manufacturing and marketing logistics, and the software. Apple has shown that no one else in the world can do that better than we can. That's why we are the most valuable company, yet we have no manufacturing to speak of, only partners. And if we get a cold, you will see the rest of the economy get pneumonia.

"Don't mess with our system. It's the best in the world, the most valuable. And we're just getting started."

It would also interesting for Cook to take some Appstore developer payment numbers with him. I suspect they show Apple pays out higher per capta numbers in countries with universal health care. They should be a good indicator that small scale entrepreneurs happen were people only have to bet their house not their health to take a punt on their own idea.

Ha. Good idea. I know my own ambitious scheming went way up when I could finally get cataract operations when I became eligible through Social Security, i.e., Medicare. It really helps to see well — the 3D is fantastic.

If the Republicans start messing with health insurace and social security, there's going to be big trouble for them. Apple probably has many ways of giving us sociological data that can be used as leverage.