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Three days after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tried to have it both ways. “I’m not going to agree with him on everything,” Altman tweeted of the new president. “[B]ut I think he will be incredible for the country in many ways!”
The gist of Altman’s sentiment—lavish praise for Trump, tempered with a polite disclaimer that it wasn’t a blanket endorsement—was far closer to a love letter than a critique. But at least it broached the possibility of disagreement. Almost a year later, most tech executives who have commented on the president have tended to follow a different principle: If you can’t say something nice about Donald J. Trump, don’t say anything at all.
Shortly before Trump returned to the White House, I wrote about tech CEOs’ attempts to newly ingratiate themselves with him, which included congratulatory social posts, million-dollar donations to his inauguration fund, and pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago. I predicted that the era of good feelings would eventually run up against the certainty that the administration’s policies, such as the promise of unprecedented mass deportations, would embroil it in controversy.
What I didn’t know was how overwhelming the assault on norms, the rule of law, and decency itself would be. Even a partial accounting of recent examples would include Renee Nicole Good’s death and the rest of the crackdown in Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Venezuela. Greenland. RFK Jr. The Justice Department’s targeting of James Comey, Letitia James, and Jerome Powell. Pardons. Epstein. Unbridled racism. Possible war crimes. The East Wing (RIP) and its vanity replacement. Distaste for democracy. From the heartbreaking to the merely mind-numbing, it just keeps coming.
During the first Trump administration, policies at the border that separated children from their parents did inspire tech executives to speak in anguished terms and call for change, though they avoided criticizing Trump directly in the process. In the past year, there has been no equivalent moment of moral clarity, however cautious. The indelible symbol of the industry’s current relationship with the president is the trophy—fashioned from American-made glass on a solid gold base—that Apple CEO Tim Cook bestowed on him at a White House press conference last August.
Only Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff—whose company has sought a contract to help ICE scale up—seems to have suffered serious backlash for erring on the side of Trump friendliness. In October, he expressed enthusiasm for the idea of the president sending National Guard troops to San Francisco, his company’s hometown. Prominent VC Ron Conway ripped into the comment in a letter of resignation from the Salesforce Foundation’s board; Benioff ended up apologizing.
Other executives continue to butter up Trump at events such as a December 10 business roundtable attended by Dell’s Michael Dell, IBM’s Arvind Krishna, and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon. Tech companies are also still greasing their presidential relationship with cash, including donations toward the absurd White House ballroom expansion from Amazon, Apple, Google, HP, Meta, Microsoft, and T-Mobile.
The industry’s failure to mount the modest level of public pushback we saw during Trump 1.0 is not exactly a mystery. This time, the president and his appointees’ increased eagerness to use levers such as tariffs, antitrust approvals, Federal Communications Commission policy, and plain old lawsuits creates an even starker imbalance of power with companies that cross him. The emergence of generative AI as tech’s next big thing is another factor: Executives who want to influence federal policy, such as its AI Action Plan, have every incentive to avoid ticking off the president on other fronts.
Tech giants may have concluded that their current approach to dealing with the administration—playing nice where tenable and ignoring one disaster after another—is working for them. It certainly seems to be working for Trump. But in the wake of the disaster unfolding in Minneapolis, there are signs the uneasy status quo might be slipping.
On January 14, Wired’s Lauren Goode reported on a petition signed by 150 tech workers calling on the industry’s leaders to speak out on ICE’s violent tactics in U.S. cities. Goode’s story also notes a few examples of industry figures tweeting about the situation in Minneapolis, including Google DeepMind’s chief scientist, Jeff Dean (whose Twitter profile notes that his posts don’t speak for Google) and Box CEO Aaron Levie.
CEOs of Big Tech companies, who have grown less accommodating of employee activism, may not be swayed by worker petitions. Brushing off their customers’ concerns is riskier. Unlike the business community, the American public doesn’t seem to be compartmentalizing its assessment of Trump. The president’s polling collapse has him underwater even on those issues he has embraced most tightly, including immigration, trade, and the economy.
After so many years of playing to—in New York Times TV columnist James Poniewozik’s words—an audience of one, the tech industry might be slow to decide that the reputational damage is no longer worth it. At some point, however, even targeted buddying up to Trump could be intolerable to consumers, who have powerful ways to register their displeasure. One relevant data point: After Disney briefly pulled ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel off the air in September, seemingly at the behest of FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, cancellations of Disney+ and Hulu reportedly doubled.
Trying to get on the right side of history has never provided most companies with adequate incentive to resist Trump’s excesses. But even short-term thinkers would reassess matters if they believed that palling around with him was costing them money. And the administration’s commitment to doubling down on its existing crises and manufacturing new ones may be bringing that day closer.
You’ve been reading Plugged In, Fast Company’s weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to you—or if you’re reading it on fastcompany.com—you can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard.M
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