Jon Swartz, Jessica Guynn, and Edward Baig

USA TODAY

NEW YORK — Ringed by tech's elite, President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday promised to do "anything we can do" to help the industry he often baited during the presidential campaign.

"This is truly an amazing group of people," Trump said at Trump Tower to kick off a meeting with Silicon Valley's top leaders. "I want to add that I’m here to help you folks do well."

A dozen tech A-listers — Apple CEO Tim Cook, Alphabet CEO Larry Page, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, among them — sat down for the two-hour meeting with the president-elect to discuss jobs, immigration policy, China, cybersecurity and taxes.

Trump told the group that his administration is "going to be here for you. You’ll call my people, you’ll call me. We have no formal chain of command around here."

He suggested, and tech leaders agreed to, meeting quarterly, according to a person briefed on the meeting. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

They discussed repatriating foreign profits, reforming taxes and regulations so companies build more jobs in the U.S., building better infrastructure, and improving education, the person briefed on the meeting said.

Government procurement and protecting intellectual-property rights, major topics for several tech companies in attendance, also came up, according to the Trump transition team.

Cook and Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX, were scheduled to meet privately with Trump later.

Notably absent, however, was Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who invented what possibly is Trump's favorite app. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not attend, but Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg did.

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Trump wants the tech industry "to keep going with the incredible innovation," he said on live television. "There’s nobody like you in the world. There’s nobody like the people in this room."

Trump was flanked by Vice President-elect Mike Pence and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, one of his few vocal supporters in Silicon Valley.

Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft declined comment on the meeting,

Bezos, however, struck a conciliatory tone. “I shared the view that the administration should make innovation one of its key pillars, which would create a huge number of jobs across the whole country, in all sectors, not just tech — agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing — everywhere," he said in a statement.

Wilbur Ross, Trump's choice for Commerce Secretary attended and said it was "a very good, constructive meeting" in which both sides "got to know each other better."

In a tweet, incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said the summit included “productive discussions about job creation & economic growth.”

The meeting, roughly one month before the billionaire real-estate tycoon is sworn in as 45th president, could offer an early litmus test on how Trump plans to bring jobs to the Rust Belt and other non-tech regions. The attendees represent more than 1.3 million U.S. jobs and a total market cap of $2.9 trillion, according to the Consumer Technology Association.

Last year, the consumer tech sector generated $3.5 trillion in economic output and accounted for more than 15 million people, or 8.4% of total U.S. employment, CTA says.

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One area where Trump and tech agree: reforming the tax code. Trump says he plans to slash the corporate tax rate to 15% from 35%, which could prompt tech giants to repatriate money kept overseas. There could also be common ground over Trump's anti-regulatory policies, which might aid start-ups.

"We’re going to make it a lot easier for you to trade across borders," said Trump, who was joined by his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Before the meeting, Rometty told USA TODAY she intended to lobby Trump on ways to better train American workers so they are qualified to fill "new collar" jobs at Big Blue.

In his year-long sprint to the presidency, Trump has traded barbs with the industry. While President Obama frequently visited Silicon Valley and hosted tech executives at the White House, Trump engaged in tweet-bashing Apple and Amazon, disparaging their off-shoring of jobs, stances on encryption and tax contributions.

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Dozens of executives, meanwhile, signed an open letter opposing Trump's candidacy.

Nearly all represented large, traditional companies with the exception of Palantir Technologies, the private software and services company co-founded by Thiel. Thiel, Kushner and Priebus organized the gathering of tech executives Wednesday.

Earlier Wednesday, Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick were added to Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum, which had been noticeably absent of tech leaders.

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Despite resistance to a tech summit from anti-Trump voices in Silicon Valley, tech's biggest names did not pass up a chance for a face-to-face with the incoming president.

“Trump is our president for the next four years, so the tech community needs to set aside its intellectual arrogance and move forward with him to maintain its preeminence as an industry,” says Vineet Jain, CEO of start-up Egnyte, an enterprise file-sharing and collaboration provider. “He’s a businessman; I don’t think he will do anything to jeopardize (the tech industry).”

Baig reported from New York; Swartz and Guynn from San Francisco.

Contributing: Elizabeth Weise in San Francisco.

Follow USA TODAY tech reporters Jon Swartz @jswartz Jessica Guynn @jguynn and Elizabeth Weise @eweise on Twitter.