Trump's tech summit to focus on jobs; Cook, Musk, Sandberg to go
A veritable who's who of technology executives are planning to attend President-elect Donald Trump’s tech summit in New York Wednesday, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Alphabet CEO Larry Page, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
The other tech leaders who have RSVP'd for the meeting are Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins and Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt.
Trump is planning on attending the meeting organized by chief of staff Reince Preibus, adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and tech investor and transition team adviser Peter Thiel. The agenda will focus on boosting American jobs and how technology companies can work with the new administration, a person familiar with the matter told USA TODAY. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss it publicly.
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Silicon Valley, which bet heavily on Hillary Clinton in the months leading up to the presidential election, is looking to build bridges to the incoming administration.
Trump’s remarks on tech — his opposition to net neutrality and hard stances on limiting immigration and free trade — have alarmed tech executives, but they also see a new opportunity to push a tech-friendly agenda in Washington.
"I plan to tell the President-elect that we are with him and are here to help in any way we can. If he can reform the tax code, reduce regulation, and negotiate better trade deals, the U.S. technology community will be stronger and more competitive than ever," Catz said in a statement.
The WSJ and Recode reported news of the attendees earlier.
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The chief executive of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, and of Uber, Travis Kalanick, declined the Trump invitation because they are traveling this week, their representatives said.
"While we’re unable to send a representative to this meeting, we look forward to working with the incoming administration, and others in Washington, on a range of issues," Airbnb said in an emailed statement.
Invitations for the event from Priebus, Kushner and Thiel went out last week.
Contributing: Marco della Cava