Trump wanted Big Tech executives to ‘like’ him before he took office, report claims

Former president held highly anticipated meeting with top executives prior to taking office

Former President Donald Trump wanted Big Tech executives to “like” him ahead of him taking office in 2017, a new report touching on his relationship with Facebook claims, as he escalates his war against Silicon Valley executives.

In 2016, the then-president-elect held a highly anticipated meeting with top executives from Amazon, Apple, Alphabet and Facebook after slating them during his campaign.

A report by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang in The New York Times says that during that initial meeting Mr Trump told the group: “Everybody in this room has to like me”.

“They’re all talking about the bounce,” Mr Trump is cited as saying at the time in reference to the growth in the markets following the election. “So right now everybody in this room has to like me at least a little bit, but we’re going to try and have that bounce continue.”

Ahead of the 2016 meeting “executives made their way through the lobby of Trump Tower, past reporters shouting questions they ignored, into the gold elevators and up to meet with the president-elect,” the Times says.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Alphabet’s Larry Page, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg were all known to have been present at the 2016 roundtable.

"In the world, there’s nobody like the people in this room," Mr Trump told the group, according to a pool report at the time. "Anything we can do to help this go along, we’ll be there for you."

Despite the flattery, the Times claimed that Facebook’s Ms Sandberg had already formed an opinion on Mr Trump ahead of the meeting saying she had “made her preferences very clear: She did not like him.”

“In fact, she was still in shock and mourning for Hillary Clinton’s defeat. She was a reliable and prominent Democratic bundler,” the report reads, before detailing how CEO Mark Zuckerberg eventually “became the emissary to Washington.”

The account of the meeting is adapted from a forthcoming book on Facebook based on over 400 interviews, with the excerpt revealing the relationship between Mr Zuckerberg and Ms Sandberg.

The revisit to Mr Trump’s initial appeal to executives comes as a dramatic contrast to the now terse relationship between the former president and Big Tech.

The rapport between Mr Trump and high profile social media companies has hit an all-time low following the 6 January insurrection and the former president’s ban from the platforms.

This week, Mr Trump announced he is suing three of the country’s biggest tech companies, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube over the ban.

Back in 2016, however, Mr Trump was said to have been eager to find common ground with the executives, telling them: "You call my people, you call me. It doesn’t make any difference."

"The meeting today was very informative and productive, and President-elect Trump and his team were extremely engaged," Andrea Duffy, a spokeswoman for Cisco (CSCO), said back in 2016, CNN reported.

She added: "The group discussed critical matters related to job creation and innovation in the United States."