The White House, led by the Trump administration's high ranking officials, said on Thursday that it will be hosting a roundtable discussion on innovation with top technology firm executives next week amidst its efforts to ease the tension between the US government and the big Silicon Valley companies. Several companies will be attending and one of the focal points of the gathering would be the technology development and how this translates to future employment opportunities for Americans.
According to Reuters, a number of chief executives from popular tech companies have received the memo and has confirmed participation for the said event. Among the names of chief executives expected to appear are Satya Nadella of Microsoft Corporation, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet Inc., Steven Mollenkopf of Qualcomm Inc., and Safra Catz of Oracle Corp.
Apple's big boss Tim Cook, still haven't expressed intention to take part in the occasion. Apparently, the fruit company's CEO is not on the list of the known attendees of the roundtable, a report from Apple Insider said, although the email disseminated by the White House stated that other unnamed executives could still join the discussion. As such, it is possible that Cook will be gracing the venue.
Reconciliation Effort
As it is known, the relationship between the White House and tech companies hasn't been warm since President Trump assumed the presidency in 2017.
Trump, for example, was quick to accuse tech behemoths such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter on August for treating the conservatives and Republicans unfairly.
The POTUS also unwittingly criticized them on issues concerning data encryption as well as how they present the news to the public. A specific case in hand is Google's supposed deliberate move to suppress positive conservative stories and instead highlight the so-called fake news.
At that time, Trump threatened to prosecute the Alphabet search engine for what he claimed to be a concerted effort to make him and the presidency look bad.
In the recent months, the Oval Office has been working on to win back their sentiments. The administration is also courting some of the firms to bring back their manufacturing operation to the US. The White House did so by offering corporate tax cuts.
Aside from the White House officials, presidential adviser Larry Kudlow said that the president himself will preside over the event.
This wouldn't be the first time Trump organized such an event. In June of last year, the White House met with the top dogs of 18 technology companies in the US including Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft.
