U.S. President-elect Donald Trump smiles to the crowd during the National Guard Association’s 146th Convention and Exhibition at the Huntington Square Convention Center in Detroit, Michigan, August 26, 2024.
Emily Erkonen | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Yuan CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos has a particularly troubled past with President-elect Trump. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is locked in a fierce legal battle with Elon Musk, who has become one of Trump’s biggest supporters and is poised to play a major role in his second administration.
It all helps explain this week’s announcement about a donation to the Trump inaugural fund.
“President Trump will lead our country into the era of artificial intelligence, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure that America stays ahead,” Altman said in a statement on Friday. The company confirmed Altman said , he plans to personally donate $1 million to the fund.
Yuan Weeks after Zuckerberg dined privately with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the company confirmed to CNBC that it donated $1 million to the inauguration. Amazon There are also reportedly plans to donate $1 million wall street journal.
Trump, who has been an outspoken critic of technology companies, said earlier this month that he would not shy away from antitrust enforcement. The incoming president has nominated Gail Slater, who advised Trump on tech policy during his first term, to head the Justice Department’s antitrust division.
“Big Tech has been working like crazy for years to stifle competition in our most innovative industries, and they have been known to use their market power to suppress the rights of many Americans as well as small tech companies!” Trump said on December 4 wrote in a post truth society Slater’s nomination was announced. “I was proud to fight these abuses during my first term, and our Justice Department’s antitrust team will continue that work under Gale’s leadership.”
Some of Trump’s most hostile comments in the past have been directed at Amazon and Meta.
During his first term, Trump repeatedly attacked Bezos and his company, Amazon and the Washington Post, accusing them of tax evasion or publishing “fake news.” Trump has also repeatedly accused Amazon of using the U.S. Postal Service to deliver packages to customers, claiming the company caused the post office’s budget problems.
Hostility goes both ways. In 2019, Amazon accused Trump of “behind-the-scenes attacks” on the company that resulted in the loss of billions of dollars worth of Department of Defense contracts, then known as JEDI. Before the 2016 election, Bezos criticized Trump’s actions, saying they “eroded our democracy.” After the then-Republican candidate accused Bezos of using The Washington Post as a “tax shelter,” Bezos, who also owns the Blue Origin space company, offered to use one of his rockets to send Trump to Trump sent into space.
Blue Origin competes with Musk’s SpaceX for government contracts.
At the New York Times DealBook Summit on December 4, Bezos said he expected the next administration to create a friendlier regulatory environment.
“I’m actually very optimistic this time,” Bezos said on stage. “He seems to have a lot of energy dedicated to reducing regulation. If I can help do that, I’ll help him.”
Trump calls Bezos “Jeff Bozo.” His favorite nickname for Meta’s CEO was “Zuckerschmuck.”
After Trump lost the 2020 election, he filed a class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google and their respective CEOs. All three companies removed Trump’s account from their platforms after the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021.
Trump has long accused Facebook of silencing conservative voices. In March, he called the platform “the enemy of the people and much of the media” in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Now that Trump is back in the White House and has been courting Musk, others in the tech industry appear keen to curry favor. apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google After Trump’s victory in November, CEO Sundar Pichai and others publicly congratulated him.
Microsoft declined to comment on whether it would contribute to the inauguration. Representatives for Apple and Google did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
For OpenAI and Altman, the concerns are somewhat different. Altman and Musk are co-founders of OpenAI, which began as a nonprofit. The two have since publicly parted ways, with Altman continuing to serve as OpenAI CEO while Musk founded a rival artificial intelligence company called xAI.
In March this year, Musk sued OpenAI and co-founders Altman and Greg Brockman, accusing them of breach of contract and fiduciary duties. He claims the project has been transformed into a for-profit entity controlled primarily by majority shareholder Microsoft and is suing to block the structural changes.
OpenAI fired back on Friday, claiming a blog post Titled “Musk Wants a For-Profit OpenAI,” in 2017, Musk “not only wanted, but actually created a for-profit outfit” as the company’s proposed new structure.
Altman is about to worry that Musk spent more than US$250 million Helped drive Trump’s campaign and is now poised to help lead the Department of Government Effectiveness. In this role, Musk could influence how artificial intelligence is regulated to benefit his companies.
December 5, Trump declare Venture capitalist and podcaster David Sachs (a friend of Musk) will join the Trump administration as “White House AI and cryptocurrency czar.”
watch: Trump’s cabinet will have the most billionaires in history
About The Author
