What does Big Tech hope to gain from warming up to Donald Trump?

NEW YORK: In a string of visits, dinners, calls, monetary pledges and social media overtures, big tech chiefs — including Apple's Tim Cook, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, SoftBank's Masayoshi Son and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — have joined a parade of business and world leaders in trying to improve their standing with President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office in January. “I won’t be surprised if they find ways to reach some accommodations and we end up seeing more negotiated resolutions and consent decrees.” Although federal regulators began cracking down on Google and Facebook during Trump’s first term as president — and flourished under Biden — most experts expect his second administration to ease up on antitrust enforcement and be more receptive to business mergers. Cook slammed the bloc’s order for Apple to pay back up to 13 billion euros in Irish back taxes as “total political crap.” Trump, then in his first term as president, piled on, referring to the European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who was spearheading a campaign on special tax deals and a crackdown on Big Tech companies, as someone who “really hates the U.S.” Brussels was eventually vindicated after the bloc’s top court rejected Apple’s appeal this year, though it didn’t stop Cook from calling Trump to complain, Trump recounted in a podcast in October. He recently said at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit in New York that he was “optimistic” about Trump’s second term, while also endorsing president-elect’s plans to cut regulations.