Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

World's biggest tech CEOs pictured with Donald Trump looking awkward and unimpressed

The American Technology Council met to discuss the government's outdated computer systems 

Mythili Sampathkumar
New York
Wednesday 21 June 2017 13:51 BST
Comments
Microsoft's Satya Nadella's facial expressions sum up mood amongst tech CEOs about Trump

Leaders of the biggest tech companies in the world have met with Donald Trump to talk about modernising the government but three CEOs facial expressions during the meeting caught the attention of social media - as they seemingly looked less than impressed.

The President met with Tim Cook of Apple, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Gini Rometty of IBM, Brian Krzanich of Intel, Mr Nadella and others of the American Technology Council to discuss improving the outdated technology infrastructure used by the US federal government.

Mr Trump said the leaders were "special people" who employ "hundreds of thousands" of Americans. Not only are these tech companies regulated, in part, by the federal government but it also is one their largest customers in many cases.

There have not been kind words between the tech industry and Mr Trump, however, which likely contributed to the looks on the faces of Mr Nadella, Cook, and Bezos.

The criticism of the Trump administration began with the president's travel ban on people from certain Muslim-majority countries entering the US, reports and leaked copies of another immigration executive order that would have major impact on a category of visa holders prevalent in the tech industry - particularly those from Asia, and most recently Mr Trump's withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Mr Cook in particular, Axios reported, was likely to bring up controversial issues during the meeting, however he said recently in an interview with Bloomberg that: "I care deeply about America. I want America to do well. America's more important than bloody politics from my point of view."

Facebook was the only one of the top five tech companies that didn't attend and said it was due to a scheduling conflict. Many criticised the social media giant for playing a part in spreading "fake news" during the 2016 US election.

Naturally, Twitter users honed in on the facial expressions and came up with :

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in