At his first post-election press conference on Monday, President-elect Donald Trump expressed optimism, stating that there was a significant difference between now and when he took office in 2016: Some of his erstwhile enemies are now showing him kindness.
Regarding his treatment by CEOs of large technology companies, whom he has previously characterized as enemies, he remarked, “Everyone wants to be my friend.” I’m not sure; perhaps my personality has altered.
“One of the main contrasts over the last four years is that “everyone was fighting me,” Trump stated during the extensive press conference held at his Mar-a-Lago club.
“The biggest difference is that people want to get along with me this time,” he stated.
The comments were the first time Trump has hosted an event since November and his first press conference since winning the election.
Trump cited recent talks with Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google, former Alphabet President Sergey Brin, and Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. Additionally, he stated that he will meet with Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, later this week.
“Tim Cook was present. He has done a fantastic job at Apple, in my opinion. He spoke about Apple’s future. The future is going to be bright. However, we also have a lot of other people who are not in that line of work,” he stated. “We have a lot of great executives coming in, the top executives, the top bankers, they were calling.”
A number of significant tech firms have already contributed $1 million apiece to Trump’s inaugural fund, including Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI.
Trump’s relationship with many of the CEOs of Big Tech has been tense; after the Jan. 6, 2021 uprising, several of them banned him from social media and attacked measures that were implemented under his previous presidency.
For instance, executives criticized Trump in 2020 for his executive order to ban new foreign worker visas, claiming that immigration, and particularly technology companies, had bolstered the American economy.
Trump was prohibited from accessing his Facebook and Twitter accounts following January 6. Later, he sued Google, Facebook, and Twitter over some of the bans.
Additionally, Trump and Bezos had a falling out over Bezos’s ownership of The Washington Post, Amazon’s 2021 decision to not work with the far-right social media app Parler, and Amazon’s application for a $10 billion Pentagon contract.
With several of its other key players also assuming both official and informal positions in Trump’s second administration, the thawing of ties is representative of a larger rightward shift in the IT industry. The most well-known is Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the richest person in the world, who Trump appointed to head a Department of Government Efficiency with former biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy. Technologist Jacob Helberg and venture investor David Sacks have also been appointed to business advisory positions by Trump.
Trump also hinted during Monday’s press conference that he would be open to pardoning Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, who was accused of bribery and wire fraud in September as part of a nearly ten-year plot.
Trump stated, “Yeah, I would, I think that he was treated pretty unfairly,” adding that he is unsure of the “gravity” of the case but that the accusations made against the mayor don’t seem reasonable. “I mean, I’d have to see it, because I don’t know the facts.”
When asked about the purported drone sightings over New Jersey and New York, Trump responded, “The government knows what is happening.” He refused to say if he had been briefed on it by intelligence.
They don’t want to comment for some reason, and I believe it would be better if they stated what our president and military know. And they want to keep people guessing for whatever reason.
Trump made remarks regarding Luigi Mangione, the alleged gunman who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and those who have applauded him for carrying out the atrocity.
“It’s really terrible that some people seem to admire him, like him,” Trump stated. “It was cold-blooded, just a cold-blooded, horrible killing.”
When asked if there were any plans to halt a TikTok ban next month, Trump responded, “We’ll take a look at TikTok.”
“You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” he remarked, adding that he believed his usage of the app contributed to his election success with young people. “I had a 34-point victory over youth. Additionally, some people believe that TikTok is involved in it. According to national exit polls, Trump lost the majority of votes under the age of forty-four.
Additionally, Trump declared his intention to sue The Des Moines Register for publishing the newspaper’s last election cycle poll, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris ahead by three percentage points. The historically red state was ultimately won by Trump by a margin of almost 13 percentage points.
Trump has attended a SpaceX test launch, other organizations’ events, and many athletic events, but this was his first press conference since winning the 2024 election. During the same time frame in 2016, Trump had already hosted eight victory rallies across the nation and engaged in multiple news conferences in the Trump Tower lobby. Additionally, Biden hosted 15 events in 2020 that were planned by his new administration.
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