Leaders from the tech industry are slated to meet with President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday afternoon, and the companies they represent have experienced a steady increase in stock value since Trump won the White House.
Those attending the meeting, hosted at Trump Tower in Manhattan, include: Tim Cook of Apple; Larry Page and Eric Schmidt from Google parent company Alphabet, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Ellon Musk of Tesla, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, Safra Catz of Oracle, Brian Krzanich of Intel, Chuck Robbins of Cisco, and Ginni Rometty of IBM.
Stocks for all of these firms, barring Facebook, closed with gains Tuesday afternoon, coming off the announcement that the tech leaders would meet with the president-elect. The tech industry has seen a steady, and at times rapid, increase in stock value since Election Day. Shares of IBM soared from 155 on Election Day to nearly 170 as of market closing Tuesday. Apple and Microsoft stocks are also responding favorably to the post-election trading environment, both posting steady gains throughout the past month.
Collectively, the companies represented at the meeting hold hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and liquidity overseas. There is no doubt that some of these firms would like to move capital back to the United States, if they were offered a friendly repatriation tax rate and the possibility of corporate tax reform on the horizon.
Trump and Congress are proposing tax plans that could likely gain favor with industries currently doing business overseas. Trump proposes a one-time tax for domestic businesses with billions of dollars overseas, hoping to incentivize these companies to bring their foreign capital back to the United States. The president-elect also plans to lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, and lower the top individual income tax rate (such as partnerships) to no more than 15 percent. (RELATED: A Comprehensive Look At Donald Trump’s Tax Plan)
While the stock values of tech companies appear to signal a strong market, some are apprehensive about the Trump meeting with tech executives.
During the campaign, the president-elect took repeated swings at Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, for his papers critical, sometimes aggressive reporting of the Trump campaign. The Post was the outlet that leaked the video of Trump’s lewd comments to Billy Bush, which made waves in the final weeks of the campaign.
The @washingtonpost, which loses a fortune, is owned by @JeffBezos for purposes of keeping taxes down at his no profit company, @amazon.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2015
The @washingtonpost loses money (a deduction) and gives owner @JeffBezos power to screw public on low taxation of @Amazon! Big tax shelter
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2015
If @amazon ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash and it would crumble like a paper bag. The @washingtonpost scam is saving it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2015
Bezos is not the only one in the room who caught flack from Trump during the campaign. Apple CEO Tim Cook got some heat too. Trump called for a full-on boycott of Apple products in the Spring of 2016 until the firm agreed to unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters for the FBI.
“Apple ought to give the security for that phone, OK. What I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such a time as they give that security number. How do you like that? I just thought of it. Boycott Apple,” Trump told a crowd in South Carolina. “Tim Cook is looking to do a big number, probably to show how liberal he is. But Apple should give up, they should get the security or find other people.”
The entire group may not feel as ostracized as Bezos and Cook. IBM CEO Ginni Remetty is one of 16 leaders in the business community chosen to advise the president-elect on the economy. Her presence at the meeting may help to stymie any tension in the room, and drive effective and open conversation.
All personal grudges aside, the main topic of discussion during the meeting will be jobs and immigration. Over half of U.S. tech startups valued at $1 billion or more have at least one immigrant founder, and immigrant workers are an integral part of the Silicon Valley economy, as they are in many parts of the nation. Trump was critical during the campaign season of the H-1B skilled workers visa program, vowing in March to “end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program.”
Tech leaders wrote to Trump in November, saying: “the U.S. immigration system must allow more high-skilled graduates and workers to stay in the United States and contribute to our economy. To accomplish this, the U.S. must expand and improve the Green Card program, including the creation of a STEM Green Card system.”
The tech executives will likely be looking to open the president-elect’s mind on these issues, as they were not very receptive to his statements during the campaign season.
Send tips to robert@dailycallernewsfoundation.org
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.