A number of leading technology CEOs will visit the White House later this month for a technology summit led by Donald Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser Jared Kushner.
Top technology executives including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will attend the American Technology Council meeting where they will discuss the modernization of government services. However, Facebook has yet to respond to the invitation.
The meeting comes after seven leading technology companies paid for a full-page ad in The New York Times urging Donald Trump to reverse his decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed he would quit the White House advisory council over Trump’s decision to pull out.
Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2017
The meeting will be led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside a number of government officials, where they will discuss future collaboration between technology firms and the government, as well as future deals between them and federal agencies.
The American Technology Council was formed by Trump in May as part of an effort to upgrade the U.S. government’s use of digital services. The executive order signed by Trump read:
It is the policy of the United States to promote the secure, efficient and economical use of information technology to achieve its missions. Americans deserve better digital services from their government. To effectuate this policy, the federal government must transform and modernize its information technology and how it uses and delivers digital services.
In the run-up to last year’s presidential election, the vast majority of prominent technology executives, such as Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Apple CEO Tim Cook, actively endorsed Hillary Clinton’s candidacy against Donald Trump.
However, in December last year, Trump held a meeting with a number of Silicon Valley leaders in which he promised to “make it a lot easier for [them] to trade across borders.”
You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com
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