The most powerful leaders in the tech industry are trying out a new playbook to engage Donald Trump, who has been historically opposed to their dominance: in-person dining.
A steady stream of some of the biggest names in technology — Meta Platforms Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos — have all made pilgrimages to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to personally meet with the president-elect, a stark reversal from his 2016 victory, when many business leaders kept their distance, instead currying favour by hiring well-connected lobbyists.
“Everybody wants to be my friend!!!,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Thursday.
That remark echoes a comment he made during a press conference earlier in the week drawing a contrast with his first term when “everyone was fighting” to now, with corporate executives clamouring to dine with him on his Palm Beach resort’s patio.
Trump is the first Republican in the last 20 years to win the popular vote. He lost it in 2016 even as he won the Electoral College to secure the White House. Now, in addition to the entreaties to have a private audience with him, he’s also racking up a wave of executive or corporate commitments to finance his inauguration.
The president-elect has been openly hostile to some in the tech sector, sharing his gripes on Truth Social — the social media platform he started after he was kicked off many mainstream sites following the 2021 US Capitol insurrection. Trump’s complaints have ranged from bias against conservative voices on Facebook to unfavourable Google search results.
Still, Trump also enjoys hobnobbing with wealthy, successful business leaders, many of whom are celebrities in their own right.
CEO ‘Panic’
Motivating some of the executives to establish a rapport with Trump is the concern that their company, products or they personally could be the target of social media missives that the president-elect is known to fire off at any time, often without warning.
“I think the term is ‘panic.’ These guys were all anti-Trump, and they all know he has a great memory, an enormous amount of energy and is quite prepared to go after people who he thinks are a problem,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in an interview.
At a dinner on Wednesday, Trump and Bezos were joined by Trump’s son Eric and his wife, Melania, along with Tesla Inc. and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, a major campaign donor and the world’s richest person, according to a person familiar with the gathering.
Musk became a fixture of the president-elect’s inner orbit during the campaign and this week used that influence to nudge Trump to oppose a congressional spending deal, a move that could lead to a government shutdown if no deal is reached by the weekend.
“President Trump is surrounding himself with industry leaders like Elon Musk as he works to restore innovation, reduce regulation, and celebrate free speech in his second term,” Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement.
That’s the kind of sway tech executives could stand to wield if they are able to ingratiate themselves with Trump. During his first White House term, Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook had some success employing this strategy. By frequently meeting and conversing with Trump — something many other CEOs didn’t do for fear of reprisal from employees or customers — Cook was able to mostly fend off tariffs that could have significantly increased the cost of importing iPhones.
As threats of fresh rounds of tariffs loom, as well as a yearning in some Republican circles to crack down on tech giants, CEOs and founders see the value in proactively making their case to Trump and his top lieutenants.
Bezos was a target of Trump’s jabs during his first term. On Wednesday, he found himself at the same table as Musk — one of the few people in the world wealthier than him — and whose Starlink satellite internet is one of the fiercest competitors to Amazon’s Project Kuiper. Amazon’s service has fallen behind schedule on development and the company is faced with the prospect of an incoming administration stacked with people closely aligned with SpaceX.
Tech demos
Zuckerberg visited Trump and several of his advisers at Mar-a-Lago in late November. The series of meetings, which took place over two days, included sessions with Susie Wiles, Trump’s incoming chief of staff; Stephen Miller, a top adviser; and Senator Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for secretary of State. The Meta chief executive gave Trump a demo of the company’s new Ray-Ban branded smartglasses, which have become a top product priority for the company as it pushes deeper into artificial intelligence and wearables.
Zuckerberg has made clear that he’s interested in advising Trump on tech policy moving forward, and Meta is arguably the company that stands to benefit the most from a possible ban of TikTok, which could come as soon as January. Meta has a rival video product, called Reels, that is already popular with young people and could see an influx of new users if TikTok is ultimately banned.
The Zuckerberg visit to Mar-a-Lago was a positive step for someone who has been a target of Trump’s ire over the years. The president-elect suggested on the campaign trail that Zuckerberg should be jailed for alleged election interference during the 2020 US elections, and called Facebook the “Enemy of the People” back in March.
Brin and the CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. Sundar Pichai also dined with Trump earlier this month, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The overtures from the Google executives to the president-elect are a noteworthy departure from the search giant’s approach to the first Trump administration. After the 2016 election, Pichai and Brin, who are both immigrants, criticized Trump’s proposal to ban people from several Muslim-majority countries from travelling to or seeking refuge in the US — with Brin even joining protesters at the San Francisco International Airport in January 2017. “I’m here because I’m a refugee,” Brin told reporters at the time.
The meeting with Trump comes as Google is set to tussle with the government on several critical fronts in the coming year, including antitrust issues and AI regulation. Trump has named several critics of Google to his administration, including Brendan Carr to head the Federal Communications Commission. He has accused Google of manipulating search results and allegedly censoring conservative viewpoints.
