It was November 12, 2016, 4 days after Donald Trump gained his first presidential election. Apart from a number of outliers (taking a look at you, Peter Thiel), nearly everybody within the tech world was shocked and appalled. At a convention I attended that Thursday, Fb CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated it was “a pretty crazy idea” to suppose that his firm had something to do with the end result. The next Saturday, I used to be leaving my favourite breakfast place in downtown Palo Alto after I bumped into Tim Prepare dinner, the CEO of Apple. We knew one another, however at that time, I had by no means actually sat down with him to do a deep interview. However this was a second when uncooked feelings have been triggering all kinds of conversations, even between journalists and famously cautious executives. We ended up speaking for what will need to have been 20 minutes.
I gained’t go into the particulars of a non-public dialog. However it should shock nobody to listen to what was mutually understood on that streetcorner: We have been two individuals surprised at what had occurred and shared the identical unstated perception that it was not good.
I’ve thought again to that day many occasions, definitely final yr when Prepare dinner gifted President Trump a glitzy Apple sculpture with a 24k gold base, and most just lately this previous weekend when he attended a White Home screening of the $40 million vainness documentary about Melania Trump. The occasion, which additionally included Amazon CEO Andy Jassy (whose firm funded the venture) and AMD CEO Lisa Su, came about solely hours after the Trump administration’s masked military in Minneapolis put 10 bullets into 37-year-old Division of Veterans Affairs ICU nurse Alex Pretti. Additionally, a snowstorm was coming, which might have offered a great excuse to overlook an occasion which may very effectively hang-out its attendees for the remainder of their lives. However there was Prepare dinner, feting a competitor’s media product, trying sharp in a tuxedo, and posing with the film’s director, who hadn’t labored since he was accused of sexual misconduct or harassment by half a dozen ladies. (He has denied the allegations.)
Prepare dinner’s presence displays the habits of lots of his friends within the trillion-dollar tech CEO membership, all of whom run companies extremely susceptible to the president’s potential ire. Throughout Trump’s first time period, CEOs of corporations like Fb, Amazon, and Google straddled a tightrope between objecting to insurance policies that violated their firm’s values and cooperating with the federal authorities. Prior to now yr, nevertheless, their default technique, executed with various levels of enthusiasm, has been to lavishly flatter the president and lower offers the place Trump can declare wins. These executives have additionally funneled thousands and thousands towards Trump’s inauguration, his future presidential library, and the humongous ballroom that he’s constructing to switch the demolished East Wing of the White Home. In return, the company leaders hoped to blunt the influence of tariffs and keep away from onerous laws.
This habits upset lots of people, including me. When Jeff Bezos purchased The Washington Submit, he was seen as a civic hero, however now he’s molding the opinion pages of that venerable establishment into that of a White Home cheerleader. Zuckerberg as soon as cofounded a gaggle that advocated for immigration reform and penned an op-ed bemoaning the unsure way forward for a younger entrepreneur he was teaching who occurred to be undocumented. Final yr, Zuckerberg formally cut ties with the group, however by then he had already positioned himself as a Trump toady.
When Googlers protested Trump’s immigration insurance policies throughout his first time period, cofounder Sergey Brin joined their march. “I wouldn’t be the place I’m in the present day or have any form of the life that I’ve in the present day if this was not a courageous nation that actually stood out and spoke for liberty,” stated Brin, whose household had escaped Russia when he was 6. At the moment, households like his are being pulled out of their automobiles and school rooms, despatched to detention facilities, and flown in another country. Brin and fellow cofounder Larry Web page constructed their search engine on the form of authorities grant that the Trump administration no longer supports. Nonetheless, Brin is a Trump supporter. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, himself an immigrant, oversaw Google’s $22 million contribution to the White Home ballroom and was amongst tech grandees flattering Trump at a September White House dinner the place CEOs competed to see who may pander to Trump essentially the most insincerely. One other immigrant, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, as soon as slammed Trump’s first-term insurance policies as “cruel and abusive.” In 2025, he was amongst these offering hosannas to the president.
