Joe Biden to hold mysterious meeting with the Big Five today
Joe Biden is apparently planning a meeting between the United States government and some of the top tech firm bigwigs today (Wednesday, August 25th), according to a report from Neowin. The CEOs of six big names have been invited so far: Tim Cook from Apple, Satya Nadella from Microsoft, and Andy Jassy from Amazon, as well as Google, IBM, and JPMorgan Chase (an American multinational investment bank).
We have no evidence of confirmation from any of these companies yet, and we may not find out who actually attended until after the event. We can very likely expect Microsoft to be there, at least.
The company had fully supported Joe Biden's presidential campaign, and stated that "under each of the last two American presidents, we found that we were served best by efforts to partner where we can, while standing apart where we should," emphasizing the need to "strengthen the ties that bind us in common purpose."
The reason for the meaning is unknown as of yet as well, although as Neowin surmises, it's possible it has to do with the recent attacks on cybersecurity and how to diminish the risk of such threats in the future. It's a logical assumption after Biden signed an executive order in May, asking for collaboration from private companies in battling threats on national cybersecurity.
There have been a few large-scale attacks over the past few months, compromising many citizens' individual security. These include Russian hackers infiltrating dozens of US government officials' iPhones through a zero-day attack, or another case of Russian intelligence officials executing a successful cyberattack on SolarWinds, a giant information technology firm in the United States.
Other attacks have also been made on the Microsoft Exchange Server, the Colonial Pipeline, and Kaseya (an American software company) as well, to name a few more.
The US government has a lengthy history of working with the Big Tech, such as when Donald Trump designated CEOs from Apple, Tesla, Uber, IBM, Alphabet, and others as his strategic advisors, to shadier matters, such as years of the United States government exerting pressure on Apple to allow them access to a "backdoor" to iPhone users' encrypted data for gaining high level access, should the need arise.
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless
Things that are NOT allowed: