Donald Trump’s promise to tech leaders in New York ‘summit’: ‘Anything we can do to help’

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Trump and tech leaders
Tech leaders are shown seated around the table with Donald Trump and Mike Pence on Wednesday in New York. Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, lower left, is kitty corner from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. (Sean Spicer Photo / Twitter)

With the all-important Kanye West Summit behind him, President-elect Donald Trump moved on to the business of meeting with some of the biggest leaders in technology on Wednesday in New York.

Some of those who took a seat around a giant conference table at Trump Tower included: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos; Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella; Apple CEO Tim Cook; Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg; Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, CEO and chairman of Google parent Alphabet; Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz; Intel CEO Brian Krzanich; IBM CEO Ginni Rometty; Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins; and Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors.

Update (12:06 p.m.) Trump addresses trade issues promising ” to do fair trade deals.”

We’re going to make it a lot easier for you to trade across borders. ‘Cause there are a lot of restrictions, a lot of problems. But I think you’ll see. If you have any ideas on that, that would be great. Because there are a lot of border restrictions, a lot of border problems.

Update (11:54 a.m.) Trump to tech leaders: “There’s nobody like you in the world. There’s nobody like the people in this room. Anything we can do to help this go along … we’re going to be there for you, and you’ll call my people, you’ll call me … it doesn’t make any difference. We have no formal chain of command around here.”

Update (11:53 a.m.) Trump thanks Peter Thiel for his support and, taking his hand, says, “He’s ahead of the curve. And I want to thank you, man, you’re a very special guy.”

Update (10:42 a.m.) Elon Musk just arrived at Trump Tower.

Recode pointed out that there’s a notable name missing from the invite list: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. It’s an unusual snub considering what Twitter has meant to Trump as a means of communication. But Trump supporters seemed to revel in the news, based perhaps on Twitter kicking some “bad hombres” off the social media platform.

On Tuesday, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates beat the tech pack to the punch by getting his own Trump meeting out of the way (after Kanye, of course). Gates emerged to say that he had a “good conversation” with the president-elect about innovation and “how it can help in health, education, impact of foreign aid and energy.”

He did not, however, say anything about talking football with NFL legend Jim Brown.

Trump’s lack of experience with tech is just part of what puts him at odds with the industry. During the campaign, many tech industry leaders lined up against Trump on policy issues, with some saying he would be “a disaster for innovation” in an open letter.

But Bezos was among those who took a more conciliatory approach after the election, as he tweeted his congratulations to Trump and wished him great success.

Trump’s tech outreach continued Wednesday with new additions to his advisory board of business leaders. Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick are the newest members of Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum. Those folks will be “called upon to meet with the President frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the President implements his economic agenda.”

Check back for updates as we wait for tech hot-shots to make their way into and out of Trump Tower.

In the meantime, we’ll always have Kanye:

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