Silicon Valley Warms to Trump After a Chilly Start<br />Michael Kratsios, the White House’s deputy chief technology officer, said in an interview<br />that while Mr. Trump and Silicon Valley had their differences, “in places where we do see eye to eye, I think we’re achieving extraordinary success.”<br />Dean Garfield, head of the Information Technology Industry Council, a 102-year-old advocacy group<br />that represents the biggest tech firms, said his members walked a tightrope, supporting and opposing the president on different issues.<br />On the campaign trail in 2016, Mr. Trump was so critical of tech companies<br />that Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, once joked he might send Mr. Trump to space in a rocket.<br />Many tech companies lobbied for corporate tax reform for years before Mr. Trump signed the new tax bill.<br />After Apple took advantage of the new tax law in January to bring back most of the $252 billion cash hoard<br />that it had parked overseas, the company said it would make a $350 billion “contribution to the U. S. economy” over the next five years.<br />But Apple also said it planned to hire 20,000 new workers, invest in new data centers<br />and another domestic campus, and increase a fund for innovative American manufacturers to $5 billion from $1 billion.<br />Mr. Shapiro said that he had voted for Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump’s opponent, in 2016, but<br />that he and many tech executives had come around on Mr. Trump.
