Google CEO Sundar Pichai was expected to fly to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence on Thursday to meet with the president-elect, according to a report.
Pichai is just the latest billionaire tech executive from whom Trump has sought counsel, along with Tesla founder Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, according to The Information.
But this meeting comes after years of Trump accusing the massive search engine of fervent anti-conservative – and anti-Trump – bias.
Meanwhile, the United States government is considering whether to break up Google after a judge in August ruled that the search engine is a monopoly. As president, Trump could influence the weight of the penalty Google will face for operating an illegal monopoly.
As Pichai tries to warm up to Trump, he faces significant obstacles – including Musk, who owns Tesla, SpaceX, xAI and X, formerly known as Twitter.
Musk became a close confidant to Trump during the course of his campaign, joining him onstage at rallies and at his Mar-a-Lago residence on election night – and donating a massive $250 million to his campaign and pro-Trump PACs.
His companies compete directly with Google’s artificial intelligence ventures and Waymo, its self-driving car unit.
Musk reportedly caught Pichai by surprise when he hopped on a phone call between the Google executive and Trump last month, according to The Information.
During Trump’s first campaign and presidency, Pichai criticized the Republican president on his “Muslim ban.”
“Let’s not let fear defeat our values,” Pichai wrote in a blog post in 2015 after Trump, then a candidate, proposed the ban.
He doubled down in 2017, after Trump signed an executive order banning refugees from Muslim-majority countries, saying Google would “fight” the ban.
Trump has sung a different tune on Google in recent months, defending the company and saying it should not be broken up, but he has still filled his incoming cabinet with anti-Google picks.
Trump tapped Google critic Gail Slater to lead the Justice Department’s antitrust efforts and signaled his administration would continue going after tech giants.
“Big Tech has run wild for years,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social announcing he would nominate Slater.
Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, has similarly slammed Google in the past for squashing conservative voices.
Pichai is not expected to try any negotiations on the antitrust lawsuit or future regulations during his meeting with Trump, a person briefed on the plans told The Information.
Tech leaders are scrambling to curry favor with Trump ahead of his second administration as they fear intense regulatory scrutiny.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet with the president two weeks ago and Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is planning to meet with Trump next week, the president-elect said on Thursday.
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