Trump Hosts Dinner Humiliating Tech CEOs

The Wall Street Journal (gift link):

President Trump on Thursday led leaders of the world’s biggest
technology companies in a version of his cabinet meetings, in
which each participant takes a turn thanking and praising him,
this time for his efforts to promote investments in chip
manufacturing and artificial intelligence.

Tech titans including Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and OpenAI
CEO Sam Altman said “thank you” to the president, with some laying
out how much their companies plan to invest in the U.S.

“Thank you for being such a pro-business, pro-innovation
president. It’s a very refreshing change,” Altman said. “I think
it’s going to set us up for a long period of leading the world,
and that wouldn’t be happening without your leadership.”

Cook said Apple is expected to invest $600 billion in the U.S. “I
want to thank you for setting the tone such that we can make a
major investment in the United States and have some key
manufacturing here. I think it says a lot about your leadership
and focus on innovation,” Cook said.

This whole thing was so weird. I know this sounds crazy, but I genuinely think these CEOs were unaware that this dinner was going to be open to the press and filmed. They’re all unprepared and awkward. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t know what number to declare for Meta’s upcoming US infrastructure spend. Tim Cook said this:

I want to thank you for including me this evening. It’s incredible
to be among everyone here, particularly you and the first lady.
I’ve always enjoyed having dinner and interacting.

Those are not prepared remarks. I mean, what? He enjoys “having dinner and interacting”?

I’m not going to argue that any of these CEOs, Cook included, are playing this situation right. But it really shows the profound power imbalance. The president of the United States is so astonishingly powerful. And Trump is wielding that power in unprecedented ways. This entire fiasco is embarrassing, but the criticism really ought to be directed at Trump.

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