Tech CEOs Take Turns Grovelling at Feast of Embarrassments ⇥ wsj.com

Katherine Bunt, Meredith McGraw, and Megan Bobrowsky, Wall Street Journal:

President Trump on Thursday led leaders of the world’s biggest technology companies in a version of his cabinet meetings, in which each participant takes a turn thanking and praising him, this time for his efforts to promote investments in chip manufacturing and artificial intelligence.

Present at the table were Sam Altman, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, David Sacks, and — immediately to Trump’s right — Mark Zuckerberg. Bill Gates was also there for some reason. Here is a fun exchange the Journal pulled from all the grovelling:

Trump also addressed Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai about a federal judge’s ruling this week on an antitrust case related to Google’s monopoly in search. The judge levied relatively light penalties and rejected the most significant measures sought by the Justice Department, which filed the lawsuit in 2020.

“You had a very good day yesterday,” Trump said. “Do you want to talk about that big day you had yesterday?”

“I’m glad it’s over,” Pichai said.

“Biden was the one who prosecuted that lawsuit,” Trump said. “You know that, right?”

Beginning this section by reminding readers the suit was filed under the first Trump administration is a kind way of calling out the president’s flexible concepts of time and responsibility.

At least nobody gave him any solid gold statues this time, as far as I know.