There were no signs of lingering animosity Wednesday during a meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and a group of America’s top technology giants, many of whom were some of his fiercest critics during the campaign.
The meeting in Trump Tower included people whose companies are global household names — Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk.
Trump struck a cordial and conciliatory atmosphere for the meeting.
“There’s nobody like the people in this room. … We want you to keep going with the incredible innovation,” Trump said at the start of the meeting. “Anything we can do to help this go along, we’re going to be there for you.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook, right, and PayPal founder Peter Thiel, center, listen as President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with technology industry leaders at Trump Tower in New York, Dec. 14, 2016.
Trump invited the CEOs to telephone him directly if they want to talk.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence as well as Trump’s three adult children were at the meeting.
Many of the high-tech leaders had strong misgivings about a Trump presidency before the election because of his criticism of China, his threats to tear up trade deals, and his plans to curb immigration, which would limit the number of highly qualified workers for the industry.
An open letter signed Tuesday by more than 200 high-tech employees pledged not to help Trump develop a data registry to track people based on their religion or for possible deportation.
During the campaign, Trump often clashed with Silicon Valley. He called on voters to boycott Apple because of its position on privacy, and vowed to “get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land.”
He faced off against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over immigration, and lambasted Amazon’s Bezos, accusing Bezos of using his ownership of The Washington Post newspaper as a scheme to avoid taxes.
The Washington Post has been less than kind to Trump in its editorial pages.
Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz, center, enters Trump Tower ahead of a meeting of technology leaders with President-elect Donald Trump in Manhattan, New York City, Dec. 14, 2016.
But Trump promised the tech giants Wednesday to put together “fair-trade deals” that would “make it a lot easier for you to trade across borders.”
Oracle CEO Safra Catz said before the meeting that if Trump can “reform the tax code, reduce regulation, and negotiate better trade deals, the U.S. technology community will be stronger and more competitive than ever.”
Department of Energy
Also Wednesday, Trump formally named a one-time political foe, former Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry, to head the country’s Department of Energy, a sprawling agency Perry once said should be abolished as wasteful.
Perry called Trump a “cancer to conservatism” very early in the presidential race. However, after Perry dropped out, he endorsed Trump, calling him “the people’s choice.”
The Energy Department oversees the country’s nuclear-weapons arsenal and promotes development of green-energy projects.
Critics say Perry could shift the department away from its recent focus on renewable energy and back toward oil and fossil fuels, which Perry promoted in oil-rich Texas even while he turned the state into a major producer of wind-power.
Department of the Interior
The president-elect also named Ronna Romney McDaniel, the Michigan Republican Party chairwoman, to head the Republican National Committee next year.
McDaniel is the niece of former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who had been among those being considered by Trump for the secretary of state post.
“Ronna has been extremely loyal to our movement and her efforts were critical to our tremendous victory in Michigan,” Trump said in a statement nominating her. “I look forward to her serving as the party’s chairman in 2017.”
McDaniel, who will replace Reince Priebus, will be the first woman to hold the party position in 40 years. The first was Mary Louise Smith of Iowa, in 1974.
Rep. Ryan Zinke, right, R-Mont., arrives in Trump Tower, in New York, Dec. 12, 2016.
Trump also is reportedly going to nominate Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke of Montana, a former Navy Seal, to head the Interior Department.
Zinke, described by The Washington Post as a lifelong hunter and fisherman, is a proponent of keeping public lands under federal ownership. That position would put him at odds with those in the Republican Party who favor privatization, or placing federal lands under the control of states.
Trump also has said he does not think public land should be placed under state control.
The Interior Department has more than 70,000 employees across the United States and oversees more than 20 percent of federal land, including national parks.
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