US President-elect Donald Trump has met Silicon Valley executives at his Manhattan tower to smooth over frictions after both sides made no secret of their disdain for each other during the election campaign.

The tech industry has had numerous disagreements with Mr Trump in the past — including on immigration, the trade relationship with China and digital privacy — but sources said the meeting may help both sides focus on shared priorities.

"There's nobody like the people in this room, and anything we can do to help this go along, we're going to do that for you," Mr Trump told the executives gathered in a conference room on the 25th floor of Trump Tower.

"You call my people, you call me, it doesn't make any difference. We have no formal chain of command," he said.

Donald Trump with PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Oracle CEO Safra Catz. ( Reuters: Shannon Stapleton )

Three of Mr Trump's adult children — Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka — sat at the head of a large rectangular table as the meeting began.

Their attendance may fuel further concern about potential conflicts of interests for the President-elect, who has said he will hand over control of his business empire to his children while he occupies the White House.

Billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates also visited Trump Tower on Wednesday, but it does not appear that he was part of the meeting.

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"We had a good conversation about innovation, how it can help in health, education, impact of foreign aid and energy, and a wide-ranging conversation about the power of innovation," Mr Gates told reporters as he walked out of the building.

The tech luminaries, including Apple's Tim Cook, Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg and Tesla Motors's Elon Musk, met with Mr Trump as US corporations worry about his challenges to long-established policy toward China, a key market for Silicon Valley.

A senior Chinese state planning officials told the China Daily newspaper on Wednesday that Beijing could slap a penalty on an unnamed US automaker for monopolistic behaviour, a warning that came days after Mr Trump questioned acknowledging Taiwan as part of "one China".

The CEOs of Airbnb and Uber were invited but did not attend.

Uber's Travis Kalanick will instead be traveling in India all week, according to a person familiar with his plans.

Reuters