President-elect Donald Trump held a meeting with some of the biggest names from the Silicon Valley. At the summit, Trump appointed Uber's CEO, Travis Kalanick and Tesla's Elon Musk as his strategic advisors. These two will now meet the president frequently to offer their advice and expertise.
Travis couldn't attend the meeting at the Trump Tower due to travel. However, the President-elect was joined by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, CEOs of Google's parent company Alphabet, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, and Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, as well as Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber. Trump told the top people of these companies that, "There’s nobody like you in the world, in the world, there’s nobody like anyone in this room. And anything we can do to help this go along, and we’re going to be there for you."
Things would have been quite awkward for a few people, as nearly 150 influential people from Silicon Valley had published an open letter back in July, stating that “Trump would be a disaster for innovation". It was signed by founders and top executives from companies such as Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Qualcomm, Samsung, Tinder, Snapchat, Yelp, and Slack. In fact, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk had criticised Trump by saying that, "I feel a bit stronger that he is not the right guy". Kalanick too had jested Trump before the elections: "Oh my god, Donald Trump’s gonna win. I’m going to move to China if Donald Trump wins."
Defying all the political experts, Trump is set to become the 45th President of the United States. Despite most of the mainstream media rooting against him, he still managed to clinch the election. Let's hope that instead of cribbing about his election, the Silicon Valley brokers peace with him and move forward.
Source: Washingtonpost | Images: Sean Spice (Twitter), Boing Boing.
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