Tech’s shift to Trump: all the companies and execs kissing the ring

In his first statement since the Supreme Court upheld a law that could ban TikTok from the US on Sunday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew offered no insight into what would happen to the app in just a few days. Instead, he took the opportunity to appeal to President-elect Donald Trump.

“I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” Chew says in a video on the platform. “We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a President who truly understands our platform — one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process.”

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and even TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew are among the powerful tech leaders lined up to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, but Nvidia’s CEO won’t be joining them.

Reuters reports that when asked about his attendance, Jensen Huang said he would instead be celebrating the Lunar New Year “on the road” with employees and their families.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) are putting pressure on big tech firms to explain their motives for donating to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund. In letters to Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Uber, the lawmakers express concerns about the companies making contributions to “avoid scrutiny, limit regulation, and buy favor.”

Over the past several weeks, Google, Microsoft, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman all donated $1 million apiece to Trump’s inauguration, while Uber and its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, each contributed $1 million. Many of these tech execs have already met with Trump, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is even hosting an inauguration party for the incoming president, according to The New York Times.

President Biden used his final public address from the Oval Office to warn the nation about the dangers presented by the spread of misinformation and power-hungry tech leaders.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”

At this point, it’s pretty clear what Donald Trump wants from Mark Zuckerberg. But what does Zuckerberg, who has now gone to Mar-a-Lago twice since the November election, want from the President-elect?

That’s the question I’ve been asking sources in and around Meta over the last several days. They all described Meta’s relationship with the outgoing Biden administration as incredibly hostile. It’s safe to assume that Zuckerberg wants a reset for the MAGA regime, especially since Trump threatened not that long ago to imprison him for life.

I’ll spare you the experience of listening to one of the richest men in the world whine and just tell you straight out: Mark Zuckerberg’s interview on The Joe Rogan Experience is full of lies.

Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook’s parent company Meta, sets the tone at the very beginning: “I think at some level you only start one of these companies if you believe in giving people a voice, right?”

It’s been nearly a year since Instagram and Threads defaulted to blocking recommendations of “political” content from accounts you don’t already follow, but now Instagram boss Adam Mosseri says, “...we’re going to be adding political content to recommendations” on both platforms.

That’s a sharp turn from his statements in 2023 laying out the goal of a “less angry place for conversations” that wouldn’t do anything to encourage politics or hard news. However, under Meta’s new approach to moderation — and new rules about what users can say on its platforms — that goal is going out the window just as the Trump administration prepares to take over.

I have to commend Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his new policy chief Joel Kaplan on their timing. It’s not hugely surprising that, as the pair announced early today, Meta is giving up on professional third-party fact-checking. The operator of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads has been backing off moderation recently, and fact-checking has always been contentious. But it’s probably smart to do it two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office — and nominates a Federal Communications Commission head who’s threatened the company over it.

Trump’s FCC chairman pick (and current FCC commissioner), Brendan Carr, is a self-identified free speech defender with a creative interpretation of the First Amendment. In mid-November, as part of a flurry of lightly menacing missives to various entities, Carr sent a letter to Meta, Apple, Google, and Microsoft attacking the companies’ fact-checking programs.

Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are ditching third-party fact-checkers in favor of a Community Notes program inspired by X, according to an announcement penned by Meta’s new Trump-friendly policy chief Joel Kaplan. Meta is also moving its trust and safety teams from California to Texas.

“We’ve seen this approach work on X – where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context, and people across a diverse range of perspectives decide what sort of context is helpful for other users to see.” Meta said. “We think this could be a better way of achieving our original intention of providing people with information about what they’re seeing – and one that’s less prone to bias.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook is the next tech exec to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration committee, according to Axios. Cook’s donation follows similar commitments from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos through Amazon, and Meta as Big Tech companies and executives work to curry favor with the incoming administration.

Cook famously built a personal relationship with Trump during his first term that other tech CEOs are looking to replicate. He was one of many to congratulate Trump after his Election Day victory, and Axios reports that Cook has met with Trump at Trump Tower and his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Meta is shaking up its policy team ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, with global policy head Nick Clegg stepping down after seven years at the company. He’ll be replaced by Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican and Meta’s current vice president of policy.

In a post on Facebook, Clegg says it’s the “right time” for him to leave Meta, adding that he’ll spend the next few months “handing over the reins” to Kaplan. “Joel is quite clearly the right person for the right job at the right time — ideally placed to shape the company’s strategy as societal and political expectations around technology continue to evolve,” Clegg says.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to meet with President-Elect Donald Trump on Monday as the platform faces a ban in the US, according to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. The move makes Chew the latest tech executive — following Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — to meet with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

TikTok already lost in appeals court while fighting the ban-or-divest law that goes into effect on January 19th, and today, it asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

Apple CEO Tim Cook will meet with President-elect Donald Trump for dinner on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to The New York Times. It’s reportedly Cook’s first time meeting with Trump since the election.

During Trump’s first term, Cook established a direct relationship with the president that other tech CEOs have wanted to replicate. As Trump prepares for his second term, Cook may want to discuss potential tariffs, which could significantly affect Apple’s business.