American tech CEOs are hoping for the best for America — it’s part of the job. (Rising tide, lifted boats.) And in light of Donald Trump‘s 2024 election victory, many of these powerful businessmen (men is the accurate term here, not a failure of inclusivity) are wishing Trump well in his second term — and strongly signaling that they wish to work with the new President-elect.
In most cases, the CEOs are also signaling that whatever they may have said in the past (circa 2021) about insurrections and stuff like that is water under the bridge.
After all, tech lives by the famous Silicon Valley dictum “Move fast and break things” — and who has promised to move faster and break more things than Trump? Indeed, 2021 is so far in the rearview mirror for these people, it’s as if they put it in their Blackberry.
But one of the truly (and literally) lasting legacies of 21st century technology is that nothing disappears. So it may be worth noting the differences between how these enterprising, pragmatic and opportunistic tech moguls saw Trump four years ago — and how they welcome him now, even though after initially saying rioters would be brought to justice Trump has instead subsequently praised the righteousness behind the Capitol insurrection and has promised to pardon many of the so-called Jan 6ers.
From Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos‘s last second squashing of his Washington Post‘s endorsement of Kamala Harris to Apple CEO Tim Cook‘s cheerful exclamation point in his Trump congratulations, here are the reactions of five major tech CEOs to Trump’s victory — followed by their reactions to January 21, 2021.
Congratulations President Trump on your victory! We look forward to engaging with you and your administration to help make sure the United States continues to lead with and be fueled by ingenuity, innovation, and creativity.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) November 6, 2024
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet/Google, wrote: “Congratulations to President @realDonaldTrump on his decisive victory. We are in a golden age of American innovation and are committed to working with his administration to help bring the benefits to everyone.”
[NOTE: These messages are strange especially because it has been assumed in the past that giant American businesses are interested in working with the American government, not against it — this was not previously a position that CEOs felt the need to publicly declare.]
In a statement on X viewed 1.6 million times, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella evidently felt compelled to reassure investors that Microsoft — with giant government contracts already — was open to “engaging” with Trump 2.0.
Nadella wrote: “Congratulations President Trump, we’re looking forward to engaging with you and your administration to drive innovation forward that creates new growth and opportunity for the United States and the world.”
Facebook/Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose platforms suspended Trump’s accounts after the January 6 events, also congratulated Trump for his “decisive” victory, echoing Pichai’s words.
Zuckerberg recently called Trump a “bad a–” after the Butler, PA, assassination attempt and made no comment when Trump called the former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a “evil, sick, crazy b—–.”
Zuckerberg also congratulated Trump on his 2024 victory, writing: “Congratulations to President Trump on a decisive victory. We have great opportunities ahead of us as a country. Looking forward to working with you and your administration.”
Here’s Zuckerberg in 2021: