Apple CEO Tim Cook meets with Trump at tech summit
Apple CEO Tim Cook was among tech figures to attend a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump this week.
The President-elect held a summit in his New York office representatives from a number of Silicon Valley tech firms, ahead of the election.
The meeting was organised by gay Republican tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who is serving on Trump’s transition team.
Out Apple boss Tim Cook attended alongside tech figures including Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, Larry Page of Google, Elon Musk of Tesla, and Jeff Bezos of Amazon. VP Mike Pence was also present.
Mr Cook was separate;y invited to privately meet with Trump after the summit.
Though details of the conversation are off-the-books, Trump reportedly told the group: “There’s nobody like the people in this room, and anything we can do to help this go along we’re going to do that for you.
“You call my people, you call me, it doesn’t make any difference. We have no formal chain of command.”
With the exception of Mr Thiel, few major tech figures appeared welcoming towards the prospect of a Trump presidency during the campaign.
It was recently revealed that Hillary Clinton considered picking Mr Cook as her Vice Presidential running mate.
An email that surfaced after an illegal hack of the Clinton campaign revealed Cook was one of a few unexpected people included in an early list of potential candidates.
Clinton campaign chair John Podesta sent the email to the Presidential candidate on March 17th 2016, calling it a “first cut of people to consider for VP,” organized “in rough food groups.” Mr Cook did not make the final shortlist and she eventually picked Senator Tim Kaine.
Cook has been a vocal supporter of LGBT rights since he came out in 2014, and the Human Rights Campaign honoured him for his work last year.
