After Minneapolis, Tech CEOs Are Struggling to Stay Silent

It was November 12, 2016, 4 days aft Donald Trump won his archetypal statesmanlike election. Aside from a fewer outliers (looking astatine you, Peter Thiel), astir everyone successful the tech satellite was shocked and appalled. At a league I attended that Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was “a beauteous brainsick idea” to deliberation that his institution had thing to bash with the outcome. The pursuing Saturday, I was leaving my favourite meal spot successful downtown Palo Alto erstwhile I ran into Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. We knew each other, but astatine that point, I had ne'er truly sat down with him to bash a heavy interview. But this was a infinitesimal erstwhile earthy emotions were triggering each sorts of conversations, adjacent betwixt journalists and famously cautious executives. We ended up talking for what indispensable person been 20 minutes.

I won’t spell into the particulars of a backstage conversation. But it volition astonishment nary 1 to perceive what was mutually understood connected that streetcorner: We were 2 radical stunned astatine what had happened and shared the aforesaid unspoken content that it was not good.

I person thought backmost to that time galore times, surely past twelvemonth erstwhile Cook talented President Trump a glitzy Apple sculpture with a 24k golden base, and astir precocious this past play erstwhile helium attended a White House screening of the $40 cardinal vanity documentary astir Melania Trump. The event, which besides included Amazon CEO Andy Jassy (whose institution funded the project) and AMD CEO Lisa Su, took spot lone hours aft the Trump administration’s masked service successful Minneapolis enactment 10 bullets into 37-year-old Department of Veterans Affairs ICU caregiver Alex Pretti. Also, a snowstorm was coming, which would person provided a bully excuse to miss an lawsuit that mightiness precise good haunt its attendees for the remainder of their lives. But determination was Cook, feting a competitor’s media product, looking crisp successful a tuxedo, and posing with the movie’s director, who hadn’t worked since helium was accused of intersexual misconduct oregon harassment by fractional a twelve women. (He has denied the allegations.)

Cook’s beingness reflects the behaviour of galore of his peers successful the trillion-dollar tech CEO club, each of whom tally businesses highly susceptible to the president’s imaginable ire. During Trump’s archetypal term, CEOs of companies similar Facebook, Amazon, and Google straddled a tightrope betwixt objecting to policies that violated their company’s values and cooperating with the national government. In the past year, however, their default strategy, executed with varying degrees of enthusiasm, has been to lavishly flatter the president and chopped deals wherever Trump tin assertion wins. These executives person besides funneled millions toward Trump’s inauguration, his aboriginal statesmanlike library, and the humongous ballroom that helium is gathering to regenerate the demolished East Wing of the White House. In return, the firm leaders hoped to blunt the interaction of tariffs and debar onerous regulations.

This behaviour disappointed a batch of people, including me. When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post, helium was seen arsenic a civic hero, but present helium is molding the sentiment pages of that venerable instauration into that of a White House cheerleader. Zuckerberg erstwhile cofounded a radical that advocated for migration betterment and penned an op-ed bemoaning the uncertain aboriginal of a young entrepreneur helium was coaching who happened to beryllium undocumented. Last year, Zuckerberg formally cut ties with the group, but by past helium had already positioned himself arsenic a Trump toady.

When Googlers protested Trump’s migration policies during his archetypal term, cofounder Sergey Brin joined their march. “I wouldn’t beryllium wherever I americium contiguous oregon person immoderate benignant of the beingness that I person contiguous if this was not a brave state that truly stood retired and spoke for liberty,” said Brin, whose household had escaped Russia when helium was 6. Today, families similar his are being pulled retired of their cars and classrooms, sent to detention centers, and flown retired of the country. Brin and chap cofounder Larry Page built their hunt motor connected the benignant of authorities assistance that the Trump medication no longer supports. Nonetheless, Brin is a Trump supporter. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, himself an immigrant, oversaw Google’s $22 cardinal publication to the White House ballroom and was among tech grandees flattering Trump astatine a September White House dinner wherever CEOs competed to spot who could pander to Trump the astir insincerely. Another immigrant, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, erstwhile slammed Trump’s first-term policies arsenic “cruel and abusive.” In 2025, helium was among those offering hosannas to the president.