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posted by janrinok on Friday March 30 2018, @11:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the with-the-exception-of-Amazon dept.

Silicon Valley Warms to Trump After a Chilly Start

Two days after Donald J. Trump won the 2016 election, executives at Google consoled their employees in an all-staff meeting broadcast around the world.

"There is a lot of fear within Google," said Sundar Pichai, the company's chief executive, according to a video of the meeting viewed by The New York Times. When asked by an employee if there was any silver lining to Mr. Trump's election, the Google co-founder Sergey Brin said, "Boy, that's a really tough one right now." Ruth Porat, the finance chief, said Mr. Trump's victory felt "like a ton of bricks dropped on my chest." Then she instructed members of the audience to hug the person next to them.

Sixteen months later, Google's parent company, Alphabet, has most likely saved billions of dollars in taxes on its overseas cash under a new tax law signed by Mr. Trump. Alphabet also stands to benefit from the Trump administration's looser regulations for self-driving cars and delivery drones, as well as from proposed changes to the trade pact with Mexico and Canada that would limit Google's liability for user content on its sites.

Once one of Mr. Trump's most vocal opponents, Silicon Valley's technology industry has increasingly found common ground with the White House. When Mr. Trump was elected, tech executives were largely up in arms over a leader who espoused policies on immigration and other issues that were antithetical to their companies' values. Now, many of the industry's executives are growing more comfortable with the president and how his economic agenda furthers their business interests, even as many of their employees continue to disagree with Mr. Trump on social issues.

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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 31 2018, @02:23AM (2 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Saturday March 31 2018, @02:23AM (#660675) Homepage Journal

    China controls the rare earth element supply.

    There are just two rare earth mines on the entire planet: one in China and one in the US. The US one is able to operate only when rare earth prices are high enough.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:31PM (1 child)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:31PM (#660927) Journal

    one in China

    According to this [globalsecurity.org], there were somewhere around 9 active mines in China, plus whatever illegal mining goes on over there.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 31 2018, @08:09PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 31 2018, @08:09PM (#660934) Journal
      Actually to be more accurate, 9 mining companies. There are probably more active mines than companies.