Elon Musk to Join President-Elect Donald Trump’s Advisory Team

The president-elect is meeting Wednesday afternoon with leaders at the largest tech companies including Apple and Facebook.

The CEO of space travel company SpaceX is trying to get people to Mars within a decade so they can start building a new civilisation. But, Silicon Valley and critics are skeptical of these tech giants having any major weight over the decision process.

Trump was flanked by Mike Pence on his right, and Peter Thiel on his left.

United States president-elect Donald Trump has added tech executives Elon Musk and Travis Kalanick to his team of business advisers ahead of his entrance into the Oval Office in January of next year.

An official statement announcing the committee earlier this month had said the forum is “designed to provide direct input to the President… in a frank, non-bureaucratic, and non-partisan manner”.

Kalanick, who once said he’d move to China if Trump won, is not expected to be at today’s meeting because he is traveling. He’s a well-known libertarian, and someone who has mentioned that his philosophy has been shaped, at least in part, by the works of Ayn Rand.

(L-R) Larry Page, CEO and Co-founder of Alphabet, Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, and Vice President-elect Mike Pence sit during a meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and technology leaders at Trump Tower in NY U.S., December 14, 2016. Musk had said Trump was “not the right guy” for the Oval Office.

The petition on Change.org says: “Elon Musk is an influential American who is invested in creating a technologically advanced future for the United States”. Musk is one, and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is the other.

Some of the members of the forum previously announced include JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon, General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Disney chief executive Bob Iger, IBM chairman, president and CEO Ginni Rometty and former chairman and CEO of General Electric Jack Welch.

Kalanick co-founded Uber in 2008, disrupting the taxi service business model in more than 450 cities across 80 countries.

A spokesperson for SpaceX would only confirm that Musk had joined the Forum, but would not comment any further.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

In a blog post on Medium, written by Trump’s presidential campaign director of digital advertising Gary Covy, Dorsey is condemned for refusing to oblige to an “upfront deal” that included the creation of a custom “Crooked Hillary” emoji. The ANC’s numerically challenged leader seeks counsel, instead, from the Gupta brothers and others with a similarly dysfunctional view of capitalism.