Trump pledges support to tech leaders: 'Call me ... we have no formal chain of command around here'

President-elect Donald Trump told the assembled leaders of some of the nation’s top technology companies that they should feel free to reach out to him directly or anyone on his team because “we have no formal chain of command here.”

Speaking to a conference room of technology company executives at a meeting held Wednesday at Trump Tower, the president-elect bragged that his Election Day victory had spurred the economy to new heights and pledged to support the corporations whose leaders sat around his table.


“I'm here to help you folks do well. And you're doing well and I'm very honored by the bounce. They’re all talking about the bounce, so right now everybody in this room has to like me at least a little bit,” Trump said. “We're going to try to have that bounce continue and, perhaps even more importantly, we want you to keep going with the incredible innovation. There's nobody like you in the world.”

The meeting represented a détente of sorts for Trump, who at times during the campaign clashed with prominent technology figures like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Leaders from both of those companies, as well as Google parent Alphabet, Apple, Cisco, Intel, SpaceX and Microsoft, were among those in attendance. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, expected to play a first lady-like role in her father’s administration, attended the meeting as well.

“There's nobody like the people in this room and anything we can do to help this go along, we're going to be there for you and you'll call my people, you'll call me,” the president-elect said. “It doesn't make any difference; we have no formal chain of command around here.”

Alex Byers contributed to this report.