Tech leaders, including Sam Altman (C), CEO of OpenAI, and Tim Cook (2nd L), CEO of Apple, attend a dinner hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump with tech leaders in the State Dining Room of the White House on September 4.SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
Silicon Valley is caught in a bad bromance with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Mr. Trump came on strong at the start of this year, making tech billionaires, including Tesla Inc. chief executive Elon Musk, honoured guests at his second presidential inauguration after they donated heavily to his re-election campaign and inaugural fund.
Then, earlier this month, a who’s-who of the industry – minus Mr. Musk, who has since fallen from MAGA grace – gathered at the White House to build on their transformative partnership with the Trump administration. As Mr. Trump held court, the coterie of tech titans shamelessly showered him with praise.
“Thank you for being such a pro-business, pro-innovation President,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at the dinner on Sept. 4. “It’s a very refreshing change.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook credited Mr. Trump for “setting the tone” so that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company could make a $600-billion investment in the United States: “I really enjoy working with your administration.”
That sentiment was echoed by others, including Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc. and Google Inc., AMD CEO Lisa Su and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
“Thank you for incredible leadership,” Mr. Gates said at the dinner, glancing tenderly at the President. Aw, shucks.
Only three weeks have passed since that show of gut-churning genuflection, but that is a lifetime in Washington. Now Mr. Trump, known for his mercurial shifts in policy making, is forcing tech luminaries to run the gauntlet once again.
Big Tech companies were blindsided by Mr. Trump’s recent changes to the H-1B visa program for skilled foreign workers. They include a new US$100,000 price tag for each new application, as of Sunday.
Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee could help Canada recruit foreign workers, experts say
Tech companies have heavily relied on the 35-year-old program, which they use to hire engineers and other professionals primarily from India and China. Before the change, businesses paid government fees of roughly US$5,000 to US$10,000 a person.
The U.S. awards around 85,000 H-1B visas annually through a lottery process, making the new fee changes costly for companies.
Mr. Trump abruptly announced the H-1B visa program’s overhaul by proclamation on Sept. 19, just days before the modifications were set to take effect. In doing so, he publicly disparaged the tech industry’s purported preference for cheap foreign labour.
“The large-scale replacement of American workers through systemic abuse of the program has undermined both our economic and national security,” Mr. Trump stated in his proclamation.
“Some employers, using practices now widely adopted by entire sectors, have abused the H-1B statute and its regulations to artificially suppress wages, resulting in a disadvantageous labor market for American citizens.”
Opinion: Trump’s H-1B visa price hike is good for Canada
Initial confusion over whether the changes applied to current H-1B visa holders prompted mass panic over the past week. In leaked memos, companies including Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft directed foreign workers with those visas to immediately return to the U.S. if they were traveling overseas.
The U.S. government has since clarified that the proclamation does not apply to previously issued H-1B visas or applications submitted before Sept. 21.
The Trump administration is also pursuing an antitrust agenda against Big Tech companies.
On Monday, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice told the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia that Google should be broken up because of its monopoly in advertising technology.
In a separate case, the DOJ sought to have Google sell its Chrome browser over concerns about its market dominance in internet search. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected that request in a decision earlier this month, but imposed other remedies.
Then on Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission secured a US$2.5-billion settlement against online retailing giant Amazon. The agreement settles a lawsuit in which the FTC alleged that Amazon used “deceptive methods” to sign up consumers for Prime subscriptions.
Amazon, which must pay a US$1-billion civil penalty and provide US$1.5-billion in customer refunds, admitted no wrongdoing in the case. But that didn’t stop the government from taking a victory lap.
“Today, the Trump-Vance FTC made history and secured a record-breaking, monumental win for the millions of Americans,” said FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson in a statement.
Opinion: Struggling Intel could sink Trump’s chip-making scheme
Mr. Trump has also stirred up controversies with his agenda for artificial intelligence.
Nvidia Corp. and AMD recently agreed to give the U.S. Treasury a 15-per-cent cut of the sales of their AI chips to China in return for export licences – an unorthodox arrangement to say the least.
Chip maker Nvidia is also finding itself in an awkward position during the current U.S.-Sino trade war, especially since China has reportedly banned its chips – at least for now.
The tech industry’s troubles offer a valuable lesson to other businesses spending big bucks to curry favour with Mr. Trump: Bootlicking can backfire bigly.