White House to host innovation talk with tech CEOs
Google, Microsoft and Oracle executives will reportedly be in attendance.
The White House is set to host a roundtable discussion next week that will include a number of tech CEOs, the Wall Street Journal reports. A White House email says those attending will discuss "bold, transformational ideas" that "can help ensure US leadership in industries of the future," and they'll do so December 6th. Among those reportedly participating are Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf, Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwarzman and Carnegie Mellon University President Farnam Jahanian.
The Trump administration and the tech world have had a rocky relationship. The president has made accusations of bias against multiple companies and a number of CEOs, including Schwarzman, left his advisory councils last year following disagreements with the administration and the president. Further, companies and their leaders have also been outspoken about Trump's decision to leave the Paris climate accord and his administration's support of the net neutrality repeal.
The White House meeting comes a day after Pichai is scheduled to testify before Congress. He's set to discuss bias, privacy issues and Google's plans to build a censored search engine for China. The CEO was also asked to testify about election meddling and security in September, but Google offered its chief legal officer instead, a move that was rejected by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
According to the Wall Street Journal, topics on the table next week might include AI, 5G and quantum computing.
