Walking the Trump tight rope

[Bloomberg] [Fully Charged] From [Bloomberg] [FOLLOW US [Facebook Share]][Twitter Share] [SUBSCRIBE [Subscribe]] Hi folks, it’s Brad. On Wednesday, America’s top tech CEOs will pass the press gauntlet in the lobby of Trump Tower and head upstairs to meet with the president-elect. Expected to attend are Alphabet CEO Larry Page and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, [according] to [several] [reports]. Amazon CEO (and Washington Post owner) Jeff Bezos is also likely to attend. In any other presidential transition, this kind of meeting would be, more or less, routine. Not this year. Trump’s electoral victory remains hotly controversial, and Silicon Valley almost uniformly supported his opponent. Some, like investor Chris Sacca, who [spoke on NPR] Sunday morning, characterize the impending meeting as a modern version of Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 summit with Hitler in Munich and argue that tech CEOs should refuse to attend on principal. But like it or not, Trump is the incoming president, and any public business leader must seize the chance to listen to him and engage on the issues important to their industries. The question is how they should comport themselves, in what are clearly historically unique circumstances. Last week, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son offered one possible approach. In the custom of all Japanese business meetings, the legendary investor came to Trump Tower bearing ceremonial gifts. He announced that [he planned to invest] $50 billion in U.S. startups and create 50,000 new jobs. Trump expressed his delight, tweeting: “Masa said he would never do this had we not won the election!” Never mind that SoftBank had almost certainly already planned to invest at least half of its $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund in the U.S., that the headquarters for the new fund [are in London], and that it’s highly unlikely that the pledge to create new jobs can ever be verified. The Masa Strategy nevertheless paid dividends: SoftBank stock shot up 6 percent after the meeting, on optimism that the company might finally get regulatory clearance to merge Sprint with rival T-Mobile during the Trump administration. Over the weekend, Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz showed tech execs another path forward: “I plan to tell the President-elect that we are with him and will help in any way we can,” she said in a statement. “If he can reform the tax code, reduce regulation and negotiate better trade deals, the U.S. technology industry will be stronger and more competitive than ever.” It’s worth noting that Catz had met with Trump previously and was [reportedly being considered] for a position in the administration. Fortunately, there are other approaches beyond Son’s PR gambit and Catz’s expression of fealty. Tech CEOs can simply show up on Wednesday and listen to what the president-elect has to say. The topics they need to hear more about from a post-campaign Trump include corporate tax repatriation, the immigration of high-skilled workers, the protection of intellectual property and trade with China. These are among the subjects that will influence the health of the technology industry over the next four years. And if hot-button issues like weakening encryption and mass electronic surveillance come up, tech chiefs should stick to their principles—and be prepared to push back. —[Brad Stone] And here’s what you need to know in global technology news Bill Gates and friends are starting a $1 billion energy fund. While Trump may gut the EPA and overturn eight years of U.S. climate policy, a Justice League of tech execs is ready to come to the rescue. The fund, called [Breakthrough Energy Ventures], is backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Jack Ma. Gates said in a statement: “Our goal is to build companies that will help deliver the next generation of reliable, affordable, and emissions-free energy to the world.” There’s another big money player in Hollywood. Tencent is following in the path of arch-rival Alibaba and seeking to acquire film studios and production companies, rather than just investing in them. A linchpin in [Tencent’s expanded content strategy] is a series of popular books called the Tibet Code, about a Tibetan mastiff dog. The identity of the author of the series isn’t publicly known, but a Tencent executive wants to make it into a movie, describing it as “China’s Indiana Jones.” The internet got another bulletin board but without the hate. Reddit is a popular online gathering place that has recently become overrun by racism, fat-shaming and bullying. Now two former Reddit employees have started [a kinder, gentler version] of the discussion board, called Imzy. When they are not responding to hate-riddled posts and e-mails with cute cat GIFs, they said they will ban anyone who tries to disrupt the service’s overarching pleasantness. Journalists are jealous creatures, and here’s proof. The Obama doctrine, Kim and Kanye, Theranos whistleblower and the Tao of Trump advisor Steve Bannon: Stories about these topics and many others made the [fourth annual Bloomberg Businessweek Jealousy List], a benevolent exercise in which the magazine’s writers and editors list the stories we most admired by writers at other publications. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Bloomberg Technology newsletter Fully Charged. You can tell your friends to [sign up here]. [Unsubscribe] | [Bloomberg.com] | [Contact Us] Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022