Topic: Trump
Silicon Valley Takes a Right Turn – The New York Times (Jan 12, 2017)
The headline is an exaggeration – two of the four big companies mentioned are based in Washington, not California, and it’s their corporate PACs which have begun to favor Republican candidates, while their employees remain very firmly left-leaning. But the article does do a great job talking through some of the changes in recent years as big tech companies have shifted their donations towards Republicans while a Democratic president was in office. The data doesn’t go back far enough to indicate whether this is just a cyclical thing, but there’s some evidence the donations were motivated by hopes for more lenient regulatory and taxation policy under a Republican administration. Now that we’re heading into Republican control of both Congress and the presidency, we’ll see how that pans out in practice.
via Silicon Valley Takes a Right Turn – The New York Times
Amazon to Create More Than 100,000 New Jobs across the U.S. over the Next 18 Months – Amazon press release (Jan 12, 2017)
This is just the latest in a series of announcements from major tech companies (not to mention car companies and others) about job creation in the US in the run-up to the inauguration of Donald Trump as US President in a week’s time. It’s worth putting the numbers in context a bit – 100k new jobs in the US in 18 months compares to around 135k new jobs created globally over the last 18 months. 180k US employees at the end of 2016 would be 57% of my estimate of 315k jobs globally, so 100k new US jobs suggests only a slightly higher run rate and ratio of US to global jobs to the past 18 months. As with a lot of the announcements we’ve seen lately, this seems mostly about highlighting existing job creation plans rather than some new direction.
via Amazon – Press Room – Press Release
Alibaba promises Trump it’ll create a million U.S. jobs, but don’t believe it – MarketWatch (Jan 11, 2017)
This is a great bit of analysis on the latest job creation claim from an industrial leader after meeting Donald Trump. In this case, Jennifer Booton points out that Alibaba is talking about indirect job creation in the US through a Chinese-based entity, not employing people in the US directly. But it’s another sign of both he need major tech firms seem to feel to engage with the incoming administration, and their understanding that they can ingratiate themselves with it by talking about job creation. I suspect we’ll see a lot more shaky claims about job creation made by big tech companies in the coming months and years.
via Alibaba promises Trump it’ll create a million U.S. jobs, but don’t believe it – MarketWatch
Apple, Facebook, Google and Uber say they won’t help Trump build a registry of Muslim-Americans – Recode (Dec 17, 2016)
There’s growing consensus on this point now among the major tech companies, and thankfully little new noise from the Trump transition team about putting this particular campaign promise into action. Of course, that’s not to say it will never happen, or that the administration couldn’t build the registry itself, but it’s good to see tech companies showing some backbone on this point at least.
Trump claims Google and Facebook are suppressing Clinton email news – Business Insider (Oct 30, 2016)
Having already taken aim at both Apple and Amazon during the campaign, Trump began attacking Google and Facebook over perceived suppression of news about Hillary Clinton’s email servers and the various on-again, off-again investigations into them by the FBI.
via Business Insider
Trump Hits Apple Over FBI San Bernardino iPhone – CNET (Feb 17, 2016)
This was the second occasion when then-candidate Trump took aim at Apple during the campaign, with the first being his insistence that Apple should make more of its products in the US rather than overseas. This attack was over Apple’s refusal to create a backdoor to the iPhone in order to assist the FBI with its case against the alleged San Bernardino shooters. This call escalated into a call for a boycott of the iPhone (all while members of Trump’s team continued to tweet from iPhones).
via CNET
Donald Trump Says He’ll Stop Apple From Making iPhones in China – Fortune (Jan 18, 2016)
This was one of the first occasions on which then-candidate Donald Trump took aim at a big US tech company, with Apple the target. He argued that as president, he would insist that Apple make more of its products in the US rather than overseas. This is a theme he’s returned to since and which both Apple and Foxconn have apparently responded to in some of their investigations of manufacturing in the US in late 2016 and early 2017.
via Fortune
Donald Trump Attacks Amazon and Jeff Bezos on Twitter (Dec 7, 2015)
This was the first of several attacks by candidate Donald Trump aimed at Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos, which appear to have been inspired at least in part by Bezos’s ownership of the Washington Post, which in turn had been critical of Trump’s candidacy (along with the rest of the liberal media and much of the rest too) in editorials. The threats issued as possible retaliation were never specified in any detail, but as with his threats against Apple during the campaign, he kept them up throughout.
via Twitter