‘Everybody wants to be my friend’, Trump says of CEOs
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Donald Trump (left) praised Mr Tim Cook, saying he has done an “incredible job” leading Apple and said the iPhone maker has a “bright future”.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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PALM BEACH, Florida – Donald Trump said he is being embraced by business executives – in a stark reversal from when he first won the White House eight years ago – as tech executives and founders flock to Florida to meet the US President-elect.
“We have a lot of great executives coming in, the top executives, the top bankers, they’re all calling,” Trump said at a press conference on Dec 16 in Florida, adding that he recently met billionaire Sergey Brin, co-founder of Alphabet’s Google.
The President-elect was speaking to reporters after announcing that SoftBank Group planned to invest US$100 billion (S$135 billion) in the US
Trump has held a series of conversations with tech leaders at his Florida club Mar-a-Lago in recent weeks: a November dinner with Meta Platforms’ Mr Mark Zuckerberg and meetings with Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Mr Tim Cook last week.
Trump also said he plans to meet billionaire founder of Amazon.com, Mr Jeff Bezos, this week.
“I had dinner with, sort of, almost all of them, and the rest are coming,” Trump said, describing the outreach from the business community as “one of the big differences between the first term”.
“In the first term, everybody was fighting. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend,” he added.
The President-elect had a mixed record with top business leaders during his first White House term.
Trump dissolved two economic advisory councils only months after forming them, as business leaders quit en masse following his response to a white nationalist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Other executives kept Trump at arm’s length, fearing backlash from employees or customers.
Trump praised Mr Cook, saying he has done an “incredible job” leading Apple and said the iPhone maker has a “bright future”.
Mr Cook, during Trump’s first term, largely fended off tariff threats after successfully selling him on the idea that additional duties would actually benefit a South Korean rival, Samsung Electronics.
Trump for his second term is again vowing to impose sweeping new tariffs, including a 10 per cent to 20 per cent across-the-board tariffs on all foreign goods and levies as high as 60 per cent on Chinese products
Those pledges have sparked concern among business leaders that the duties could upend supply chains and disrupt trade relationships.
On Dec 16, Trump reiterated his vow to apply “reciprocal” tariffs on other nations.
“Almost in all cases, they’re taxing us, and we haven’t been taxing,” Trump said, adding that “tariffs will make our country rich”. BLOOMBERG
