How CEOs are trying to be like Musk and curry favor with Trump

When Spotify CEO Daniel Ek spoke by phone with Donald Trump, he came prepared.

Ek shared statistics with the president-elect about how well his pre-election podcast interview with Joe Rogan performed on the streaming platform, a source familiar with the discussion told CNN – a subtle way to stroke Trump’s ego during their introductory call.

Ek is one of at least 10 CEOs who’ve spoken with Trump or trekked down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with him in person since the election – often bringing along a $1 million check for his inauguration. The C-suite parade is one of the spoils of Trump’s November victory, and it reflects many chief executives’ desires to get a seat at the table with a president-elect who has power to push policies that can significantly affect their bottom lines.  The strongest example of that power – and the influence business leaders can have to shape it – was on display this week when Elon Musk led the charge to tank a government funding deal, plunging Congress into a last-minute scramble that only narrowly averted a shutdown.

Trump’s election vaulted Musk to the upper echelons of US political power. After purchasing Twitter in 2022, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO endorsed Trump this year and spent more than $260 million to help elect him. The world’s richest man is now part of Trump’s inner circle for key decisions and has been appointed, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency.

The CEOs courting Trump don’t necessarily have the same megaphone as Musk, who used his X platform to threaten GOP lawmakers on the spending deal earlier this week, but Trump’s meetings equate to a who’s who of blue-chip tech executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Alphabet Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

After killing the government funding bill on Wednesday and hurtling the government toward a shutdown, Trump and Musk dined at Mar-a-Lago with Bezos, who has an icy history with Trump. A source familiar with the matter said Trump invited Bezos to the inauguration during what was a described as a “friendly” dinner.

The president-elect posted on X the next morning, “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!”

As business titans try to smooth over relations with a president-elect known for impulsive decision-making, Trump has reveled in the attention and the positive reception he’s received, particularly among those he’s clashed with in the past.

The CEOs who have met with Trump have come in with a clear strategy, people familiar with the meetings told CNN. That includes discussing issues they know Trump will like – such as bringing manufacturing and jobs back to the US – while also sneaking in potential policy concerns they have with his new administration. Many of these CEOs are seeking the meetings as an opportunity to “start on the right page,” another source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Susie Wiles, who will be White House chief of staff in the new administration, is setting up many of the meetings. Some CEOs are having their teams or outside Trump-aligned advisers go to Wiles, while others are calling Trump directly, two sources familiar with the CEO discussions told CNN.

Many of the visits have served as introductory meetings, with Trump and the CEOs having never had personal ties before. Other executives, however, are far more focused on ensuring they keep lines of communication open over the next four years, as well as testing the water on Trump’s business priorities.

“The smart ones talk about how they want to bring manufacturing here, more jobs here, then discuss tariffs and exemptions. The smart ones are bringing up one policy point they care about and tying it to jobs and things Trump wants,” one source said.

Some Trump allies have also stressed that the president-elect and his supporters want to see more than just donations and platitudes from some of these CEOs, another source told CNN, pointing specifically to Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, a longtime Democratic donor, who met with Trump this week.

“Netflix is a company that has a multi-year deal with the Obamas, where (former Obama national security adviser) Susan Rice sits on the board,” the source said. “We want to know if the company is willing to give Republicans a seat at the table.”

It was not immediately clear if Trump and Sarandos discussed this in their meeting. Netflix declined to comment.

Repairing relationships with the new president

For several tech CEOs, the meetings are the chance to start a détente of sorts after a frosty relationship with Trump.

The president-elect has received $1 million donations for his inauguration from executives at Amazon, Meta, Open AI, Uber and others – and he’s now met with many of them, too.

Trump has a long history of feuding with Bezos, particularly over the Amazon founder’s purchase of The Washington Post and the newspaper’s critical coverage of him.

Amazon also provides one example of how Trump’s presidency – and his view of the company and its leadership – could threaten their business.

During Trump’s first administration, Amazon lost a $10 billion Pentagon contract to Microsoft. A speechwriter for Jim Mattis later wrote that Trump called his then-defense secretary and directed him to “screw Amazon” out of the opportunity.

This time, however, Bezos is approaching Trump very differently.

He was behind The Washington Post’s controversial decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 election. And once Trump won, he was quick to congratulate him. “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory. No nation has bigger opportunities,” Bezos posted on X.
“Wishing [Donald Trump] all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”

Earlier this month Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at a New York Times event: “The press is not the enemy, let’s go persuade him of this.”

CNN has reached out to Amazon for comment.

Trump has also lashed out at social media companies, blaming Twitter and Meta throughout his first term for what he alleged was censorship of conservatives on the social media sites. He also accused Facebook of election interference in his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden over donations founder Zuckerberg and his wife made to support election infrastructure.

In the run up to the 2024 election, Trump threatened Zuckerberg in his “Save America” coffee table book, writing, “We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison — as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election.”

Zuckerberg, one of the first CEOs to pledge $1 million for Trump’s inauguration, went to Mar-a-Lago and had dinner with him last month. Facebook said this month that its founder wants to take an “active role” in tech policy conversations with the incoming administration.

During his dinner on the Mar-a-Lago patio, Zuckerberg showed Trump a pair of Meta’s Ray-Ban sunglasses, a source familiar with the demonstration said, and then gave the glasses to the president-elect.

Zuckerberg and some of his top policy executives also met with a string of Trump advisers while he was in Florida. Meta’s Joel Kaplan, Kevin Martin and Republican strategist Brian Baker met with Wiles. Zuckerberg and his advisers also met with the president-elect’s pick for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio, as well as Trump advisers Vincent Haley, Stephen Miller and James Blair.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the meetings between Zuckerberg, his advisers and Trump’s aides.

Pressing their agenda

The CEO meetings aren’t just about building personal relationships – there are key issues Trump will have to decide early in his term where the discussions could make a difference on policy.

One issue is the fate of the social media giant TikTok. Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Chew at his Mar-a-Lago club Monday afternoon, as the social media giant is asking the Supreme Court to wade into a court fight over use of the app in the United States. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments next month on whether a controversial ban on the social media app violates the First Amendment.

Trump previously supported a TikTok ban, but he changed his position on the campaign trail.

“You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points and there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with it,” Trump said Monday at a Mar-a-Lago news conference. (Trump lost 18-29-year-old voters to Vice President Kamala Harris by 11 points, according to exit polls.)

TikTok declined to comment.

During Cook’s meeting with Trump, the Apple CEO raised tariffs, as well as European regulations his company is dealing with, a source familiar with the meeting said. CNN has reached out to Apple.

In another notable meeting, Trump and his pick for Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sat down with top executives from drug companies Eli Lilly and Pfizer and the industry group PhRMA.

Trump discussed that meeting at his Monday news conference, saying they spent much of the time talking about high drug prices and the roles of pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs.

“What came out of that meeting is that we’re paying far too much because we’re paying much more than other countries. And we have laws that make it impossible to reduce, and we have a thing called the middleman,” Trump said. “The horrible middleman that makes more money, frankly, than the drug companies, and they don’t do anything except they’re a middleman.”

“I don’t know who these middlemen are, but they are rich,” Trump added.
“We’re going to knock out the middleman. We’re going to get drug costs down at levels that nobody has ever seen before,” Trump said.

A source briefed on the meeting told CNN that Trump told the executives over dinner that he wanted to “destroy” the PBMs.

More meetings are likely on the horizon before Trump takes office. One source said he is expected to meet with the CEO of Walmart soon, among others.

By Alayna Treene, Kristen Holmes and Jeremy Herb, CNN

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