It was November 12, 2016, four days after Donald Trump won his first presidential election. Except for a few outliers (looking at you, Peter Thiel), almost everyone in the tech world was shocked and appalled. At a conference I attended that Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that it “pretty crazy idea“thinking that his company had something to do with the outcome. The following Saturday, I was leaving my favorite breakfast place in downtown Palo Alto when I ran into Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. We knew each other, but at that point, I had never been with him to do an in-depth interview. But this was a moment when raw emotions prompted all kinds of conversations, even among the most cautious. executive and famous conversation 20 minutes.

I will not discuss the details of a private conversation. But no one was surprised to hear what each other understood on the street corner: We were two people who were stunned by what had happened and shared the unspoken belief that it was bad.

I remember that day many times, last year when Cook gave it to President Trump a glitzy Apple sculpture with a 24k gold base, and most recently this past week when she attended a White House screening of a $40 million vanity documentary about Melania Trump. The event, which also included Amazon CEO Andy Jassy (whose company funded the project) and AMD CEO Lisa Su, took place just hours after the masked army of the Trump administration in Minneapolis put 10 bullets into a 37-year-old nurse in the Department of Veterans Affairs ICU. Alex Pretty. Also, a snow storm is coming, which will provide a good excuse to miss an event that may haunt the attendees for the rest of their lives. But there was Cook, feting a competitor’s media product, looking sharp in a tuxedo, and posing with the movie’s director, who hasn’t worked since. accused of sexual misconduct or harassment of half a dozen women. (He denies the allegations.)

Cook’s presence reflects the behavior of many of his peers in the trillion-dollar tech CEO club, all of whom run businesses that are highly vulnerable to the president’s potential wrath. During Trump’s first term, CEOs of companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google walked a tightrope between opposing policies that violate their company’s values ​​and cooperating with the federal government. Last year, however, their default strategy, executed with varying degrees of enthusiasm, was to flatter the president and cut deals where Trump could claim victories. These executives also funneled millions into Trump’s inauguration, his future presidential library, and the humongous ballroom he is building to replace the demolished East Wing of the White House. In return, corporate leaders hope to blunt the impact of tariffs and avoid burdensome regulations.

This behavior frustrates many people, I’m included. When Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post, he was seen as a civic hero, but now he’s shaping the opinion pages of that venerable institution into a White House cheerleader. Zuckerberg once founded a group that advocated for immigration reform and wrote an op-ed bemoaned the uncertain future of a young businessman he taught who was undocumented. Last year, Zuckerberg was formal cut the ties with the group, but by then he was already positioned as a Trump toady.

When Googlers protested Trump’s immigration policies during his first term, cofounder Sergey Brin joined their march. “I wouldn’t be where I am today or have any kind of life that I have today if it wasn’t for this brave country that really stood up and spoke for freedom,” said Brin, whose family escaped to Russia when he was 6. Today, families like hers are being kicked out of their cars and classrooms, sent to detention centers, and deported out of the country. Brin and fellow cofounder Larry Page built their search engine on a government grant awarded by the Trump administration no longer support. However, Brin a Trump supporter. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, himself an immigrant, oversaw Google’s $22 million contribution to the White House ballroom and was one of the tech giants who flattered Trump in September Dinner at the White House where CEOs compete to see who can be the most insincere to ask Trump. Another immigrant, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, once criticized Trump’s first-term policies as “cruel and abusive.” In 2025, he will be one of those offer hosanna to the president.