Where Were Big Tech’s CEOs on Tariffs?

If you logged on to X or Bluesky this past week, you were likely swept up in the onslaught of posts about Trump’s reciprocal tariffs and the plunging stock market. And, if you follow the tech industry as closely as I do, you probably also noticed who wasn’t posting about the tariffs: many of the same tech founders and CEOs who flanked Trump on Inauguration Day in January. Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and Mark Zuckerberg have kept mum on the topic of tariffs (although both Pichai and Zuckerberg have continued posting about AI). Meanwhile, Elon Musk—well, we’ll get to that. This is an essay from the latest edition of Steven Levy's Plaintext newsletter. SIGN UP for Plaintext to read the whole thing, and tap Steven's unique insights and unmatched contacts for the long view on tech. The silence was deafening, considering that the “magnificent seven” collectively lost trillions of dollars in market value following Trump’s tariff announcement last week. But there’s a cold logic behi ... Read full article.