Silicon Valley Faces Balancing Act Between White House Criticism and Engagement.

Silicon Valley Faces Balancing Act Between White House Criticism and Engagement

Tech leaders, among earliest critics of Donald Trump’s weekend order, seek constructive dialogue

SpaceX and Tesla Motors Chief Executive Elon Musk, at left, in a Jan. 23 meeting at the White House held by President Donald Trump, shown center greeting Wendell P. Weeks, chief executive of Corning. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Por JACK NICAS and TIM HIGGINS

Actualizado Tuesday, January 31, 2017 4:18 PM EDT

As he and other technology executives were voicing concern over the weekend about President Donald Trump’s immigration order, Elon Musk also asked the public for suggestions for how to fix it.

“Please read immigration order. [Let me know] specific amendments,” read a post Sunday on the Tesla Motors Inc. chief executive’s Twitter account. Mr. Musk added that he intended to recommend changes to the policy as a member of a White House advisory group.

Mr. Musk’s role as a Trump adviser is unusual in Silicon Valley, but his effort to balance criticism and constructive engagement reflects the broader quandary Silicon Valley faces as it tries to reconcile industry opposition to many of the new president’s positions with the reality of doing business under a Trump administration.

Tech leaders were among the earliest and most vocal critics of Mr. Trump’s immigration order—which restricts travel and immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations—starting within hours of its signing on Friday.

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The White House has defended the immigration order, saying it is an effort to prevent terrorists from entering the U.S. and has wide support among Americans. Thousands of people also gathered at airports across the country over the weekend to protest the policy.

Tech-industry criticism continued Monday, with Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos saying the e-commerce giant is exploring legal options to help counter the order. His company, along with Microsoft Corp. and Expedia Inc., is supporting a lawsuit filed by Washington state against the order.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Chief Executive Sundar Pichai on Monday attended a rally of their employees opposed to the order, where both men spoke out against the policy.

Yet the big tech companies’ statements were careful to target the immigration order, in many cases not even mentioning the Trump administration directly. And some executives, like Mr. Musk, have emphasized the need to work with the administration. Dell Technologies Inc. CEO Michael Dell, in a message to employees Monday, said “it’s imperative to us, our customers and partners that we have a seat at the policy table. It’s an opportunity to influence the policies that impact our collective ability to compete.”

“The practical matter is, you’re running a company worth billions of dollars and they’re the regulators, so what choice do you have” but to engage with the new administration, said Wesley Chan, a former Google executive turned tech investor.

Companies usually are cautious in dealing with a new administration. But the tech industry’s dance is especially delicate under Mr. Trump because of its history of discord on issues including immigration and overseas manufacturing as well as its and the industry’s broad opposition to his candidacy. Tech companies also enjoyed generally supportive policies under the Obama administration.

Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., has struggled internally with how to approach the Trump administration since the election. At a weekly meeting just after Election Day, six of its top executives, including co-founders Mr. Brin and Larry Page, spoke emotionally to employees grappling with Mr. Trump’s victory, according to an account from someone who saw it.

Mr. Brin, who immigrated to the U.S. from Russia as a 6-year-old, said at the November meeting, which was broadcast to employees, that the presidential campaign was “deeply offensive” and “conflicts with many of our values.” Mr. Pichai choked up when he vowed the company would stand up for minorities.

But the executives also made clear at the time that they had to work with the new administration. Mr. Pichai said Google was talking to Mr. Trump’s transition team, and he asked Google employees to support that process. “For us to be effective, we need to be able to participate in those transition conversations,” he said.

MORE

• Amazon Working With Lawmakers to Counter Immigration Order
• Silicon Valley Leaders Target Donald Trump’s Travel Restrictions
• Facebook’s Zuckerberg Opposes Trump’s Immigration Action
• Corporate Criticism of Trump’s Travel Ban Moves Beyond Tech
• Heard on the Street: Why Executives Are Speaking Out
• Trump Strikes Conciliatory Tone in Meeting With Tech Execs (Dec. 14, 2016)

Google declined to comment.

Mr. Musk has performed his balancing act partly in public, via Twitter. He wrote there late Saturday that the immigration order is “not the best way to address the country’s challenges.” On Sunday afternoon, he promised to bring up the policy during a meeting of the President’s Strategic and Policy Forum, on which he serves.

Late Sunday, he retweeted another user’s message that said the order “was far less bad than portrayed,” and responded that reading the “source material is better than reading other people’s opinions about the source material.” Then he followed that overnight with a tweet that said the order “is still bad.”

Mr. Musk criticized Mr. Trump during the campaign, saying he “doesn’t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States.” But since the election, he has met with Mr. Trump or his advisers several times and voiced support for a carbon tax and development of a smart energy grid, according to a person familiar with the meetings.

Both Tesla, which sells solar panels in addition to electric cars, and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., which Mr. Musk also heads, operate in heavily regulated industries and have benefited from government programs. The Obama administration’s interest in bolstering electric cars helped Tesla during its early days. And SpaceX’s largest customer is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which awarded it contracts valued at more than $6.5 billion during the past eight years.

Tesla declined to comment beyond Mr. Musk’s tweets. The CEO has said he thinks having input with Mr. Trump on big issues is more useful than simply attacking him.

After Mr. Musk last week defended Rex Tillerson, the former head of Exxon Mobil Corp. and Mr. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, one Twitter user on Friday morning told Mr. Musk he was losing credibility, prompting Mr. Musk to respond, “Yeah, am hearing from a lot of people & it’s getting me down. I’m just trying to make a positive contribution & hope good comes of it.”

Write to Jack Nicas at [email protected] and Tim Higgins at [email protected]