Anyone recall the time in the late summer of 2017 when prominent CEOs resigned from Trump’s business councils in protest at his defense of white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville, after Trump called them “very fine people”?At the time, I thought America’s CEOs might become a bulwark against Trump’s extremism. But I was wrong. Within months, the CEOs were seeking to get back into Trump’s good graces. After the insurrection unleashed by Trump against the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, many CEOs announced they wouldn’t be financing the campaigns of election deniers. CEOs of prominent social media banned Trump from appearing. I hoped their actions would limit Trump’s fanaticism and Trump’s growing MAGA movement. I was wrong again. Within two years, the CEOs were financing the campaigns of election deniers. Within three years, prominent social media were allowing Trump to return to their platforms and retell his lies. I confess to having had a moment’s thought during the last eight months that Trump’s conviction on 34 criminal counts in Manhattan, his civil conviction for defamation in connection with what a judge termed “rape,” and his disgraceful nativism — describing poorer nations as “shit holes,” using terms redolent of Nazism to describe foreigners as “poisoning the blood” of Americans, and baselessly accusing Haitian immigrants as “eating our pets” — might force CEOs to rethink their willingness to give Trump a pass. No such luck. Amazon’s founder and chief, Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, had a rocky relationship with Trump during the first Trump administration. Angry with Bezos over unfavorable reporting in the Post, Trump questioned whether Amazon got a sweetheart deal with the U.S. Postal Service. Amazon, in turn, accused Trump of improperly pressuring the Pentagon to deny the company a major cloud computing contract.Bezos apparently learned his lesson. After Trump was shot at a campaign event, Bezos called him, and on social media he praised Trump’s “grace and courage under literal fire.” Bezos didn’t allow the Post’s editorial board to endorse Kamala Harris for president. Now, Bezos says he’s “very optimistic” about the incoming Trump administration, and that Trump “seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. And my point of view is, if I can help him do that, I’m going to help him, because we do have too much regulation in this country.”Amazon is donating $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund and said it will livestream the inauguration next month.Not to be outdone in the groveling department, Meta’s (Facebook’s) CEO Mark Zuckerberg got a dinner invitation to Mar-a-Lago.Meta is also putting $1 million into Trump’s inaugural fund.“It’s an important time for the future of American innovation,” Meta said in a statement. “Mark was grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner [Zuckerberg sought it] and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming administration.”Stephen Miller, Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff for policy, told Fox News that Zuckerberg “has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of, and a participant in, this change we’re seeing all around America and the world, with this reform movement that Donald Trump is leading.”In his first administration, Trump accused Facebook of filtering out views favorable to him. He even called for Zuckerberg to be jailed in retaliation for “plotting against” him during the 2020 election.Now, like Bezos, Zuckerberg has turned to fawning. During the campaign, he had several private phone calls with Trump. After the assassination attempt, Zuckerberg told Trump he was “praying” for him and told an interviewer Trump looked like a “badass” after pumping his fist to the crowd.The suck-up list goes on and on. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also plans to donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. “President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead,” Altman says. Elon Musk and half of Silicon Valley is kissing Trump’s derrier. Last January, speaking from the World Economic Forum’s confab in Davos, Jamie Dimon — chair and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest and most profitable bank in the United States, and one of the most influential CEOs in the world — heaped praise on Trump’s policies while he was president the first time. “Take a step back, be honest,” Dimon said. Trump “was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked.”Kind of right about NATO? Trump wanted the U.S. to withdraw from the pact — and may get his way after January 20. This would open Europe further to Putin’s aggression.Kind of right on immigration? Even the conservative Cato Institute found that Trump reduced legal immigration but not illegal immigration. Trump refused to grant legal status to children of immigrants born in the United States or who grew up here and tried to ban Muslims from the U.S.Grew the economy quite well? In fact, under Trump the economy lost 2.9 million jobs. Even before the pandemic, job growth was slower than it’s been under Biden. The unemployment rate increased by 1.6 percentage points to 6.3%. The international trade deficit that Trump promised to reduce increased. The number of Americans lacking health insurance rose by 3 million. Tax reform worked? Trump’s tax cut conferred most of its benefits on big corporations and the rich, while exploding the federal debt from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion.Why did Dimon — the most influential CEO in America — spout these lies in favor of Trump? Because he thought Trump had a good chance of becoming president, and Dimon wanted to be in his good graces.Also, Dimon’s support for Nikki Haley had irked Trump. In a post on Truth Social in late November, Trump said “Highly overrated Globalist Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMORGAN, is quietly pushing another non-MAGA person, Nikki Haley, for President,” and “I’ve never been a big Jamie Dimon fan, but had to live with this guy when he came begging to the White House. I guess I don’t have to live with him anymore, and that’s a really good thing.”Dimon felt it necessary to lick Trump’s backside. When Dimon did this, it was a signal to other CEOs to abase themselves, too. The CEOs are all sucking up to Trump. At a time in American history when the most influential leaders of the U.S. need to stand up loudly and clearly for the rule of law, democracy, and decency, they are leading the charge in the opposite direction — fawning over the most dangerous authoritarian America has ever had in the Oval Office. Tump is getting nothing but fawning encouragement to do anything he wants to do. That makes him even more dangerous.NOW READ: The only way Trump will succeedRobert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
