• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia
TechBusinessperson of the Year

Trump’s Tech Summit Was Missing These Key Players

Barb Darrow
By
Barb Darrow
Barb Darrow
Down Arrow Button Icon
December 15, 2016, 12:17 PM ET
Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman Rings NYSE Opening Bell
NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 02: Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett Packard, gives a television interivew on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange after ringing the opening bell on November 2, 2015 in New York City. Hewlett Packard officially split into two companies, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, focused on businesses and HP, Inc, focused on consumers. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)Andrew Burton—Getty Images

By now the world knows which members of the technology aristocracy attended president elect Donald Trump’s tech summit. What is perhaps just as interesting is the list of those who did not.

Salesforce.com co-founder and chairman Marc Benioff was absent. As was Hewlett-Packard Enterprise chief executive Meg Whitman. Fortune reached out to the Trump team as well as HPE for comment, and will update this story as needed.

Salesforce had no comment, but according to a Twitter (TWTR) post, Benioff spent part of Wednesday, the day of the summit, at the White House with President Barack Obama (and magician David Blaine.)

Benioff is famous for backing LGBT rights among other liberal causes, and he supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in this year’s election. Whitman, a life-long Republican also backed Clinton and campaigned for her.

Incredible day with @BarackObama and @davidblaine at @WhiteHouse yesterday. I was lucky to get this photo. pic.twitter.com/h1bGG58cDX

— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) December 15, 2016

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

It’s been well documented that Twitter co-founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey was not at the New York City Trump event. That was surprising given that Twitter has become Trump’s de facto social media channel. A Trump spokesman subsequently told Reuters that Twitter was too small to make the cut.

For more on the Trump summit, watch:

Salesforce (CRM) and HPE (HPE) are both Fortune 500 companies, ranking as the 17th and 21st largest tech companies as measured by market cap respectively, listed on the Nasdaq.

The tech summit did include executives from most of the ten largest Nasdaq (NDAQ) companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft (MSFT), Facebook (FB), Intel (INTC), Oracle (ORCL), IBM (IBM), and Cisco (CSCO). Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos, who has been criticized by Trump, was also there.

But being a Clinton supporter didn’t seem to prevent an executive from being invited: Apple chief executive Tim Cook also campaigned for Clinton, and he was there.

Benioff and Whitman were not the only people MIA from the Trump event: the top guns from Yahoo (YHOO) (Marissa Mayer), Dell Technologies (Michael Dell), and Hewlett-Packard Inc. (HPQ) Dion Weisler were likewise meeting. It’s unclear whether that was because they were uninvited or declined.

Maybe the Trump Tower boardroom wasn’t big enough.

About the Author
Barb Darrow
By Barb Darrow
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • Future 50
  • World’s Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
Sections
  • Finance
  • Leadership
  • Success
  • Tech
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Environment
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Health
  • Retail
  • Lifestyle
  • Politics
  • Newsletters
  • Magazine
  • Features
  • Commentary
  • Mpw
  • CEO Initiative
  • Conferences
  • Personal Finance
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
About Us
  • About Us
  • Editorial Calendar
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Diversity And Inclusion
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map

© 2025 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.


Most Popular

placeholder alt text
Personal Finance
Trump turns government into giant debt collector with threat to garnish wages on millions of Americans in default on student loans
By Annie Ma and The Associated PressDecember 24, 2025
1 day ago
placeholder alt text
Real Estate
Mark Zuckerberg gifted noise-canceling headphones to his Palo Alto neighbors because of the nonstop construction around his 11 homes
By Dave SmithDecember 25, 2025
6 hours ago
placeholder alt text
Retail
Trump just declared Christmas Eve a national holiday. Here’s what’s open and closed
By Dave SmithDecember 24, 2025
1 day ago
placeholder alt text
Success
Chinese billionaire who has fathered more than 100 children hopes to have dozens of U.S.-born boys to one day take over his business
By Emma BurleighDecember 25, 2025
7 hours ago
placeholder alt text
Economy
Obama's former top economic advisor says he feels 'a tiny bit bad' for Trump because gas prices are low, but consumer confidence is still plummeting 
By Sasha RogelbergDecember 24, 2025
1 day ago
placeholder alt text
Success
Billionaire philanthropy's growing divide: Mark Zuckerberg stops funding immigration reform as MacKenzie Scott doubles down on DEI
By Ashley LutzDecember 22, 2025
3 days ago

Latest in Tech

Kiara Nirghin, the co-founder and CTO of the applied AI lab Chima
AIBrainstorm AI
Gen Z founder on ‘AI anxiety’ and being pigeonholed as generation shortcut: that’s the ‘biggest misconception’
By Nick LichtenbergDecember 25, 2025
5 hours ago
Panos Panay, Senior Vice President, Devices and Services, Amazon
AIBrainstorm AI
Amazon’s Alexa chief predicts an end to doom scrolling: the next generation is ‘going to just think differently’
By Nick LichtenbergDecember 25, 2025
6 hours ago
Prakhar Mehrotra smiles as he sits in a yellow chair onstage with "Fortune" on the background screen.
AIFintech
The real AI revolution is going from the information era to the ‘intelligence era,’ Paypal senior VP says. That means your focus should be tokens
By Sasha RogelbergDecember 25, 2025
8 hours ago
InvestingFinance
Goldman Sachs expects layoffs to keep rising—and says investors are punishing the stocks of companies that slash staff
By Lee CliffordDecember 25, 2025
9 hours ago
AIBrainstorm AI
Cursor CEO warns vibe coding builds ‘shaky foundations’ and eventually ‘things start to crumble’
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezDecember 25, 2025
10 hours ago
Big TechTesla
Tesla faces NHTSA probe over Model 3 emergency door handles
By Dana Hull and BloombergDecember 24, 2025
23 hours ago