By Trisha Thadani, San Francisco Chronicle
As Silicon Valley grapples with how it will fare under the incoming administration, advisers to President-elect Donald Trump have invited some industry leaders to a roundtable discussion this month.
The invitation came from Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a real estate mogul who has made some technology investments; Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist who was an early and vocal supporter of Trump’s candidacy; and Reince Priebus, Trump’s designated chief of staff.
Among those scheduled to attend the Dec. 14 meeting in New York City are Cisco Systems CEO Chuck Robbins and Oracle Corp. CEO Safra Catz. A spokeswoman for Facebook declined to comment on whether any of its executives would attend, and representatives for Apple and Alphabet did not respond to a request for comment.
The tech industry largely supported Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, who laid out detailed tech policy proposals. Trump, on the other hand, issued no such plan, leaving the industry largely in the dark about how he would deal with critical issues such as net neutrality, work visas and data privacy.
After Trump’s victory, some executives of large technology companies offered conciliatory remarks. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, who wrote an open letter to Trump after his election, was among those he named last week to an economic advisory panel that will begin meeting with him in February.
Peter Leroe-Muñoz, vice president of tech and innovation policy for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, said he is hopeful that the industry can create a productive relationship with the president-elect, even though he was not its choice.
“Silicon Valley is very adaptable; I think that is one of the hallmarks of this region that makes it so successful,” Leroe-Muñoz said. “We are always dealing with changing circumstances and realities. Our real focus is to serve as a resource to educate the administration.”
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted that Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank Group, had agreed to invest $50 billion in the U.S. and generate 50,000 new jobs. Trump wrote that Masayoshi “said he would never do this had we ... not won the election!”
Aaron Ginn, co-founder of Lincoln, an organization of conservative technologists, said the planned roundtable discussion seems like it is a “good sign for what is to come” under Trump.
“You have to face the reality that we will have this president for the next four years, at least,” Ginn said. “Trump has a way to go to work on his relations with Silicon Valley, but Silicon Valley also has to meet him halfway.”
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, seems to be working to improve relations with conservative groups. A job listing for a manager of “conservative outreach” recently appeared on Google’s career website.
“As a member of Google’s Public Policy outreach team, you will act as Google’s liaison to conservative, libertarian and free market groups,” the listing reads. “You are part organizer, part advocate and part policy wonk as you understand the world of third-party nongovernmental advocacy organizations.”
As Silicon Valley seeks a new relationship with the incoming administration, Mike Montgomery, executive director of CalInnovates, a technology advocacy coalition, said Trump should pay attention to startups as well as big tech names.
“There is a lot of innovation that comes from startups,” Montgomery said. “While it is good that the president-elect is reaching out to the tech community … the proof is still in the pudding in how Trump’s presidency will communicate with, deal with, and work with the greater technology community.”
Bloomberg News contributed to this report.
©2016 the San Francisco Chronicle Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
