Captured in images that immediately went viral, U.S. President Donald Trump’s second inauguration in January drew the attendance of the chief executives of America’s tech giants, including Google’s Sundar Pichai, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla’s Elon Musk. All vocal critics of Trump in his first term (2017-2021), America’s Big Tech leaders struck a markedly different tone this time round, projecting an image of rapprochement with the incoming administration.
That shouldn’t be terribly surprising. Corporate behavior in Silicon Valley often mirrors the personal beliefs and temperament of founder-CEOs. President Trump, for his part, is drawn to strong personalities and prefers direct dialogue with government and corporate leaders. So while his first term was defined by sharp clashes with Big Tech, his second term has clearly entered into a more cooperative phase — on both the part of the president and the oversized personalities that rule Silicon Valley.
The second Trump administration is attempting to reshape the global economy through its reciprocal tariff policies, which the White House sees as a tool to bring manufacturing back to the United States. But these tariffs are likely to push up consumer prices and even American companies with globally integrated supply chains will face higher costs. While Big Tech can sustain revenues from digital services, companies with major hardware operations — such as Apple with its iPhone business — or those with retail exposure like Amazon are likely to see costs rise.
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