A report by The Huffington Post claims that Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX chief Elon Musk were among the high-profile personalities that attended a secret meeting last weekend.
The agenda of the meeting, which also had other tech CEOs, billionaires, and top Republicans attending, focused on a plan to stop the political ascension of front-runner Republican presidential aspirant Donald Trump.
Other attendees included Facebook investor and Napster creator Sean Parker, The New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, billionaire GOP donor Philip Anschutz, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton, Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price and Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling.
The secret meeting took place in a private island resort off the Georgia coast for the annual World Forum of the American Enterprise Institute.
The Weekly Standard founder and editor Bill Kristol wrote in a report from the conference that there was unhappiness regarding the emergence of Trump as the Republican front runner, with many attendees expressing hope that he would not become the President of the United States.
The report claimed that a highlight of the meeting was a presentation made by political guru Karl Rove. The greatest weakness of Trump, according to focus group findings, was that people had a hard time in envisioning the business mogul as someone that is "presidential." Trump was also seen as an erratic individual that should not be given the power to call for a nuclear strike.
Trump was not the only topic of the meeting, however, as a fierce debate also broke out between Cook and GOP Senator Tom Cotton regarding the ongoing feud between Apple and the FBI regarding mobile device encryption.
According to a source, Cotton showed hostilities against Cook which made everyone else uncomfortable with what was happening.
Influential people in various industries have previously attended such events, and it is wrong to assume any political leanings simply from their presence in the meeting. However, the invitation to get such people together shows the political influence that these powerful people have, even those that are in the tech industry.
