It's official: Elon Musk, the bright mind behind amazing space and tech startups like SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and SolarCity, will be one of the strategic advisors for US President-elect Donald Trump.
It will be recalled that the Musk was one of the many leaders in the tech industry that vocally expressed disapproval of the then presidential candidate during the campaign period. The SpaceX founder was quoted saying, "I don't think this is the finest moment in our democracy."
"I feel stronger probably about the fact that he's not the right guy. He doesn't seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States," Musk told CNBC anchor Carl Quintanilla back in November.
US President-elect Trump pooled the most prominent tech leaders of the country for a special summit at the Trump Tower in New York City on Wednesday. In an official press release sent out on December 14, the office of President-elect Trump said: "The Forum is designed to provide direct input to the President from many of the best and brightest in the business world in a frank, non-bureaucratic and non-partisan manner," SpaceNews wrote.
In the event, Trump assured them that his administration will do everything to support the industry. "We want you to keep going with the incredible innovation. Anything we can do to help this go on, we will be there for you. You'll call my people, you'll call me. We have no formal chain of command around here," President-elect Trump told the group, The Sun reported.
Aside from Elon Musk, other high-profile CEO present at the forum included Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick, Apple's Tim Cook, Alphabet's Larry Page, Google's Eric Schmidt, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Amazon's Jeff Bezos (who also founded SpaceX rival rocket company Blue Origin), Oracle's Safra Catz, and Cisco Systems' Chuck Robbins.
Facebook Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, acted as proxy for CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook founder vehemently Trump's pledge to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally.