Trump’s senior advisor Jared Kushner has invited the country’s biggest tech leaders to an American Technology Council meeting to discuss the modernization of government services. The move follows the departure of some CEOs from Trump’s advisory board over his Paris climate agreement decision.
Among the invited leaders is Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who is yet to respond. Though he attended the first ATC meeting, his company has since taken a vocal stance against Trump.
In January, Microsoft joined Amazon in a lawsuit against the immigration ban, alongside Amazon and Expedia. A month later, it criticized the reversal of transgender rights, and last week the Paris agreement withdrawal.
It’s unclear, then, if Nadella will be open to the talk. The ATC meeting will allegedly contain sessions on Cloud computing, a topic Satya should be well-versed in.
10 Other Companies
As well as Microsoft, Kushner is asking for advisors from ten other companies. So far, Bloomberg has confirmed the following invitees:
- Apple: Tim Cook, CEO
- Amazon: Jeff Bezos, CEO
- Oracle: Safra Catz, Co-CEO
- IBM: Ginni Rometty, CEO
- Alphabet Inc: Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman
- Facebook: Unknown
It will be very interesting to see how the tech leaders will respond. So far, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have declined to comment on the matter, while IBM and Amazon did not respond in time. The only confirmation so far is Oracle’s participation.
Either way, it would make sense for Microsoft to attend. It already provides Azure and Windows to several government bodies, so it would be a natural choice for further modernization. We’ll keep you updated on Nadella’s response when more information becomes available.
