Chief executives of tech companies including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Apple’s Tim Cook met with President Donald Trump on Monday to discuss a possible overhaul of the government’s technology structure.
The President asked CEOs to help carry out a “sweeping transformation” of the federal government’s information technology and cybersecurity. The meeting was the first of the American Technology Council, a group of tech executives whose goal is to introduce improvements in the government’s “technology infrastructure.” The meeting marked the beginning of the White House’s “technology week,” aimed at pushing Trump’s policies in that area.
“Our goal is to lead a sweeping transformation of the federal government’s technology that will deliver dramatically better services for citizens, stronger protection from cyber attacks, which we were just discussing in the Oval Office with a little bit smaller group,” Trump said at the start of the meeting.
Among the other attendees at the event were Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich and Palantir CEO Alex Karp. They joined Bezos and Cook and other leaders earlier in the day for a series of working groups led by the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Kushner is personally leading the effort to bring the government’s IT into the 21st century.
“Together we will unleash the creativity of the private sector to provide citizen services in a way that has never happened before,” said Kushner, earlier Monday.
“We will foster a new set of start ups focused on gov-tech and be a global leader in the field making government more transparent and responsive to citizens’ needs.”
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