US President Donald J. Trump owns the tech industry. Many of the world’s largest and most influential tech firms and their leaders, including those at Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Meta, have gone all-in on MAGA — praising Trump’s leadership and policies, and doing his bidding.
The company’s CEO, Satya Nadella, stayed away from Trump’s inauguration, refused to shutter Microsoft’s DEI efforts, and hasn’t given Trump the praise the president so desperately wants. Most recently, when Trump demanded that Microsoft fire the company’s recently appointed President of Global Affairs Lisa Monaco (a former Biden administration official), Nadella simply ignored him.
So far, Trump hasn’t taken any public action against Microsoft (though there is an ongoing antitrust probe that could make waves). But the president isn’t known for giving up easily or ignoring a snub. He’s particularly furious about the Monaco appointment, so don’t be surprised if he makes another run at trying to take her down.
The big-dollar question for Microsoft is this: If Trump brings down the hammer on the company for hiring Monaco, what might Microsoft do in response?
For clues, let’s recall how other tech companies have bowed to the president’s wishes, see what about Monaco sets him off, and then look at what leverage, if any, Microsoft may in any blow-out fight.
Trump adulation has become so common in America’s C-suites that it’s easy to forget just how completely tech billionaires have praised him and done whatever he wants.
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder and Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Apple CEO Tim Cook all attended his Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington, DC. They were on display front and center like prized trophies.
Because of Trump, Meta, Amazon, and Google dropped support for DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs. Zuckerberg praised Trump as a “badass” and sounded like Trump’s mini-me when he said on a Joe Rogan podcast, “The corporate world is pretty culturally neutered. A culture that celebrates aggression a bit more has its own merits. Masculine energy, I think, is good.”
Bezos, as owner of The Washington Post, squashed the newspaper’s endorsement of then-Vice President Kamala Harris last year when she ran against Trump; killed a cartoon of tech leaders and Mickey Mouse bowing down to him; and turned the paper’s editorial and opinion pages into right-wing mouthpieces.
For his part, Cook showed up at the White House in August — ostensibly to talk about manufacturing in the US — and handed Trump a gold and glass statue.