A number of high profile technology leaders have been invited to attend a summit with President-elect Donald J. Trump at Trump Towers in Manhattan on December 14th.
The official invitations were issued to the tech leaders by Trump’s campaign manager, Reince Priebus, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Peter Thiel, the man charged with looking after Trump’s transition to The White House. The summit was originally thought to only contain a number of people in attendance, but has now been confirmed to have a growing list of delegates from some of the world’s most important technology companies.
Issued last week, the initial summit was only confirmed to include meetings with Cisco CEO, Chuck Robbins, and Safra Catz, the current Co-CEO of worldwide technology company Oracle. However, over the weekend it looks as though things have progressed a little, with Apple CEO, Tim Cook also confirmed to be attending the summit, along with Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, and Larry Page of Alphabet. Facebook’s current Chief Operating Office, Sheryl Sandberg, will also be descending on Trump Tower for the meeting.
Most of the summit invitations were only issued last week, meaning that it’s very likely that a whole host of additional prominent figures from without global tech companies will take the opportunity to meet with President-elect Trump. Some of those figures still haven’t confirmed, with others choosing to remain silent on the subject and refusing to confirm to the media that they will be in attendance.
Regardless of political beliefs or allegiances, it’s very likely that any important CEO, or individual in a position of power within a large technology company within the United States, would like to sit down and see what Trump actually has planned for his Presidency, especially considering a lot of the companies have beliefs and policies that are in direct contrast to Trump’s.
Tech companies also stand on the other side of a myriad of key issues from Trump, including immigration reform, encryption and a range of social concerns. But those involved said that tech leaders had little choice in accepting the invitation, even if they wanted to decline, opting to engage now even if they later oppose Trump.
It’ll be extremely interesting to see if the tax reforms that Trump promised to make manufacturing in the United States a feasible proposition is discussed during the summit.
(Source: Recode)
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