CNN
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When Spotify CEO Daniel Ek got on the phone with Donald Trump, he was ready.
Ek shared statistics with the president-elect about how well his pre-election podcast interview with Joe Rogan did on streaming platforms, a person familiar with the discussions told CNN. It was a clever way to pump Trump’s ego during a greeting call.
Ek is one of at least 10 CEOs who have spoken with Trump since the election or traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet him in person, often giving him a $1 million check to celebrate his inauguration. I bring it with me. The parade of executives is one of the spoils of President Trump’s victory in November, and the desire of many chief executives to have a seat at the table with the president-elect, who has the power to advance policies that have a major impact on the bottom line. is reflected.
The strongest example of that power, and the influence business leaders have in shaping it, is when Elon Musk led the way in breaking government funding agreements, throwing Congress into last-minute chaos and narrowly forcing a government shutdown. It became clear this week when I avoided it. .
Trump’s election elevated Musk to the upper echelons of American political power. After acquiring Twitter in 2022, the CEOs of SpaceX and Tesla endorsed Trump this year, spending more than $260 million to elect him. The world’s richest man is now part of President Trump’s inner circle, responsible for key decisions, and has been appointed to head the newly created Department of Government Efficiency alongside Vivek Ramaswamy.
The CEOs courting Trump don’t necessarily have the same megaphone as Musk, who used the Equivalent to the profile of top technology company executives, including: Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Alphabet Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
After rejecting the government funding bill on Wednesday and speeding the government toward a shutdown, Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk dined at Mar-a-Lago with Mr. Bezos, who has a cold history with Mr. Trump. Sources said Trump invited Bezos to a “friendly” inauguration dinner.
The next morning, the president-elect posted to X: “Everyone wants to be my friend!!!”
As business magnates seek to smooth relations with the president-elect known for his impulsive decision-making, President Trump has struggled with the attention and positive reception he has received, especially among people he has clashed with in the past. I’m enjoying it.
CEOs who met with Trump had a clear strategy in mind, a person familiar with the meeting told CNN. That includes discussing issues they know Trump likes, such as bringing manufacturing and jobs back to the United States, while also sneaking in potential policy concerns they have about the new administration. Many of those CEOs are seeking the meeting as an opportunity to “start on the right page,” another person familiar with the matter told CNN.
Susie Wiles, who will become White House chief of staff in the new administration, is setting up many of the meetings. Two sources familiar with the CEO discussions told CNN that some CEOs had their own teams or outside advisers aligned with Mr. Trump come to meet with Mr. Wiles, while others asked Mr. Trump. Some people call directly.
Many of the visits functioned as introductory talks, and Trump and the CEOs had no prior personal relationship. But other executives are far more focused on ensuring lines of communication remain open over the next four years, as well as examining Trump’s business priorities.
“Smart people talk about how they want to bring manufacturing here, they want to create more jobs, and then they discuss tariffs and exemptions. “He’s taking one policy issue and tying it to jobs and what President Trump wants,” one person said.
Some Trump supporters have also stressed that the president-elect and his allies want more than donations and banalities from some CEOs, another source told CNN. In particular, he singled out Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos, a longtime donor to Democrats. I met with President Trump this week.
“Netflix is a company that has a multi-year contract with the Obamas, and (former presidential aide to the president) Susan Rice is on the board,” said the person. “We want to know if our company is willing to give Republicans a seat at the table.”
It was not immediately clear whether Trump and Sarandos discussed this during their meeting. Netflix declined to comment.
For some tech CEOs, the meeting is a chance to begin some kind of détente after a frosty relationship with President Trump.
The president-elect received $1 million in donations on his inauguration day from executives from Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, Uber and other companies, and is still meeting with many of them.
Mr. Trump has long been at odds with Mr. Bezos, particularly over the Amazon founder’s acquisition of the Washington Post and the paper’s critical coverage of Mr. Bezos.
Amazon also offers an example of how Trump’s presidency and his views on the company and its leadership could threaten its business.
During the Trump administration, Amazon lost a $10 billion Pentagon contract to Microsoft. Speechwriter Jim Mattis later wrote that Trump called his then-Secretary of Defense and told him to “kill Amazon and destroy the opportunity.”
But this time, Bezos is taking a completely different approach to Trump.
He was behind the Washington Post’s controversial decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 election. And when Trump won, he immediately celebrated. “I sincerely congratulate our 45th and now 47th President on their extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No country has a greater opportunity than this,” Bezos wrote on X.
“I wish (Donald Trump) every success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”
“The press is not the enemy. Let’s convince him of this,” Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at a New York Times event earlier this month.
CNN has reached out to Amazon for comment.
President Trump has also blasted social media companies, accusing them of censorship of conservatives on the sites, and has criticized Twitter and Meta Inc. throughout his first term. He also accused Facebook of election interference over donations made by founder Zuckerberg and his wife to support election infrastructure during Joe Biden’s defeat in the 2020 election. denounced.
In the run-up to the 2024 election, Trump threatened Zuckerberg in his book Save America, writing: So are the others who rigged the 2024 presidential election. ”
Zuckerberg was one of the first CEOs to pledge $1 million to President Trump’s inauguration and went to Mar-a-Lago last month to have dinner with him. Facebook said this month that its founder wants to play an “active role” in conversations about technology policy with the incoming administration.
During dinner on the patio at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Zuckerberg showed Mr. Trump a pair of meth Ray-Ban sunglasses, then handed them to the president-elect, according to a person familiar with the demonstration.
Mr. Zuckerberg and policy executives met with Mr. Trump’s advisers while in Florida. Meta’s Joel Kaplan, Kevin Martin, and Republican strategist Brian Baker spoke with Wiles. Zuckerberg and his advisers also met with the president-elect’s pick for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Trump advisers Vincent Haley, Stephen Miller and James Blair.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the meeting between Zuckerberg, his advisers and Trump aides.
CEO meetings aren’t just about building personal relationships. There are important issues that President Trump will have to decide early in his term, and those discussions could lead to changes in policy.
One issue at stake is the fate of social media giant TikTok. President Trump met with TikTok CEO Hsu Choo at his Mar-a-Lago club on Monday afternoon. The move comes as the social media giant is asking the Supreme Court to join its legal battle over the use of the app in the United States. The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to hear arguments next month on whether bans on controversial social media apps violate the First Amendment.
Trump previously supported banning TikTok, but changed his position during the campaign.
“You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won young people by 34 points,” Trump said Monday at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. And some say TikTok has something to do with it.” (According to exit polls, Trump lost an 11-point lead to Vice President Kamala Harris among voters ages 18 to 29.)
TikTok declined to comment.
During Mr. Cook’s meeting with Mr. Trump, the Apple CEO not only raised tariffs, but also increased European regulations the company is working on, according to people familiar with the meeting. CNN has reached out to Apple.
In another notable meeting, Mr. Trump and his nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., met with executives from pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly and Pfizer and industry group PhRMA.
President Trump mentioned the meeting during Monday’s press conference, saying they spent much time discussing high drug prices and the role of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).
“What became clear in that meeting is that we pay far more than other countries, and we have laws that make it impossible to make cuts, and we have what are called intermediaries. “There is,” President Trump said. “Frankly, they’re horrible intermediaries who make more money than drug companies. They don’t do anything other than be intermediaries.”
Trump added, “I don’t know who the middlemen are, but they’re rich.”
“We’re going to knock out the middleman. We’re going to bring drug costs down to levels that no one has ever seen before,” President Trump said.
Trump told executives over dinner that he wanted to “destroy” PBM, a person briefed on the meeting told CNN.
Further meetings are scheduled before President Trump’s inauguration. One of the people said he plans to meet with Walmart’s CEO and others soon.
CNN’s Claire Duffy contributed to this report.
