CNN —
Executives at some of the nation’s biggest technology companies are seeking an audience with Donald Trump ahead of the presidential election, with a coin toss to decide whether they will return to the Oval Office.
President Trump and Apple CEO Tim Cook last week discussed the iPhone maker’s ongoing legal issues in Europe, the former president said in an interview Thursday. Later that day, President Trump told an audience in Las Vegas that CEO Sundar Pichai, “the head of Google,” called on him to marvel that the Republican candidate’s campaign had stopped throwing fries at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. .
“He said, ‘This is one of the hottest things.’ I’ve never seen anything like this,” Trump recalled. He retold the story on Joe Rogan’s podcast on Friday, identifying the executive as Pichai.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy also recently contacted the former president, two people familiar with the call between the two told CNN. And Mark Zuckerberg called Trump this summer after the first assassination attempt on Trump, during which Mehta praised the way he handled the shooting incident and told him he wanted to do it as soon as possible. He said he was praying for his recovery, a person familiar with the conversation said. Despite their once rocky relationship, the two have since spoken passionately about each other in the media.
The growing push by the world’s most powerful Big Tech leaders to meet with the former president ahead of Election Day comes amid an unusually close race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. is. And it’s the latest sign that the larger business community is rekindling ties with the former president in anticipation of a possible second term.
Mr. Trump already counted X Company and Tesla Inc. billionaire Elon Musk among his supporters, a financial force who poured more than $100 million into helping him get elected. After meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in March, Musk at one point said he had no intention of donating to either presidential campaign. But recently, the world’s richest man has been dangling $1 million daily bounties for people who register to vote and sign petitions affirming their support for free speech and the right to bear arms. The Justice Department has warned that the plan may be illegal. Musk has poured at least $118 million into a super PAC supporting President Trump’s bid for the White House. Other Silicon Valley executives are also using their vast platforms and deep pockets to back the former president.
But while Apple, Google and Amazon are ostensibly less involved in partisan politics than Mr. Musk and other Silicon Valley converts, their every move can shake up stock markets and affect the U.S. economic outlook. It can instill trust or fear. The renewed interest in forging a relationship with Trump comes as many in the business world accept or at least accept the possibility of having to steer under the former president again. It’s a sign of hedging bets, people familiar with the matter said. That’s what was said in the conversation.
“Some people say it’s like they’re starting to wake up to the fact, ‘Oh my god, this guy might get elected again.’ I don’t want him and his administration to come after us,” said a source close to Trump. told CNN. “I think they hear what he says out loud and they take it seriously.”
The conversation between Trump and Jassy, which had not been previously reported, comes as Amazon founder and largest shareholder Jeff Bezos faces backlash related to another company he owns, The Washington Post. It was held in The paper recently decided not to endorse a candidate in a presidential election for the first time since the 1980s, prompting a wave of subscription cancellations and internal backlash.
A person familiar with the conversation with Mr. Jassy said the conversation was instigated at the company’s request and that the exchange with Mr. Trump was “a general, hello-type thing.” Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump also met with executives from Bezos’ space exploration company Blue Origin on Friday after an event in Austin, Texas, according to the Associated Press.
Apple did not respond to CNN’s email asking about the content of the call between Cook and Trump. A Google spokesperson said the company “has nothing to share regarding this matter.”
Mr. Trump clearly enjoys strengthening ties with big tech companies. He has flaunted his private conversations with them in interviews and appearances. He is now praising the companies he once blamed for his 2020 election loss and sparking years of Republican-led attacks on tech companies.
After the assassination attempt on President Trump in July, Zuckerberg gave an interview to the podcast The Circuit at Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., and called Trump’s immediate reaction to the shooting “terrible.” . President Trump has made Mehta a regular target of his ire, accusing his social media platform Facebook of supporting Democrats in 2020. Mr. Mehta at one point banned Mr. Trump from the company’s platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
But now Trump says Zuckerberg is “much better.”
“Actually, I believe he will stay out of the election, which is great,” the former president said in an interview on Barstool Sports’ “Bussin’ With The Boys” podcast.
Whoever is sworn in next year will face an immediate decision on whether to continue President Joe Biden’s crackdown on Big Tech. The Biden administration’s Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, accusing it of manipulating the smartphone market and stifling innovation. The company is also aggressively pursuing Google, arguing that it is a modern-day version of the AT&T monopoly that the government broke up in a historic decision in the 1980s.
In a recent interview at the Economic Club of Chicago, Mr. Trump declined to say whether he would follow through with Mr. Biden’s efforts to break up Google. However, he said he is “not a fan” of the company and that “the company treats me badly.” He previously said if re-elected he would demand that Google be prosecuted to the “fullest level”, saying Google broke the law and showed only “bad stories” about Trump and “good stories” about Harris. He claimed without evidence that there was no such thing.
But Trump’s view of Google changed in Thursday’s interview.
“I think if you look at Google these days, you’ll see that they’re leaning more toward President Trump,” the former president told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “They’re starting to like Trump, because they’re starting to understand it.”
Hours later, Trump told a crowd in Las Vegas that he had spoken to Google’s top executives.
Google and Apple are also facing increasing legal headwinds overseas, with the European Union awarding them multibillion-dollar judgments for tax avoidance. Last month, the European Supreme Court irrevocably ruled that Apple owes up to $14.4 billion in taxes and Google owes $2.6 billion.
President Trump said Thursday that he had discussed the ruling with Cook, with whom he has had a relationship since his first term. He suggested that Apple’s results would change if it wins in November.
“I’m telling you, with the right president, all of these companies will be released,” Trump said. “All those companies will be in good shape. Don’t worry about that.”
CNN’s Claire Duffy and Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.
