When President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the global climate Paris Agreement during his first term in 2017, the response from the nation's top tech leaders was swift.
"Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real," Elon Musk said on X. "Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world."
"Wrong for our planet," wrote Apple CEO Tim Cook.
"Bad for the environment, bad for the economy," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post.
"Deeply disappointed," Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff wrote on Twitter, adding that his company would "double our efforts to fight climate change."
Eight years later, Trump again withdrew from the global climate accord – this time on his first day in office when he also signed a flurry of executive orders derailing national policies combating climate change.
The social media channels of tech billionaires have been silent this week on Trump's climate actions.
"So far crickets – just lots of fawning tech bro sycophancy," Ben Dear, founder and CEO of London-based asset manager Osmosis Investment Management, wrote in a LinkedIn post published Tuesday. "Of course its early days and there is still time for them to find a spine – but we shouldn't be holding our breath."
Instead, Zuckerberg, Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos filled VIP seats in the Capitol Rotunda normally reserved for family at Monday's inauguration ceremony in Washington, DC.
And on Tuesday, other tech titans – OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son and Oracle founder Larry Ellison – joined Trump at the White House for photos and a news conference to announce a US$500bil (RM2.2 trillion) artificial intelligence venture called Stargate.
What changed from 2017 until today?
"They have bigger agendas," said David Vogel, professor emeritus of business ethics at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. He cited tax and trade policies and other regulations impacting their businesses, especially regarding artificial intelligence.
"And they don't want to antagonise him," Vogel said.
Eight years ago, rejecting Trump's anti-climate science stance seemed advantageous for companies.
But today, experts said that Americans in general are more concerned about high prices than about what may seem like less immediate goals, such as slowing climate change. The Paris accord is a voluntary agreement among nations to decrease planet-warming emissions.
Moreover, tech billionaires are staking the future of their businesses on the emergence of AI and are lobbying governments to limit regulations that might stifle innovation and protect their access to energy resources because of AI's massive power demand.
On Wednesday, Benioff told a CNBC news reporter that "the United States of America has a tremendous lead in artificial intelligence" and he would do whatever he could "to support the administration."
Benioff, who was being interviewed in Davos, Switzerland, where world leaders and corporate executives were gathered for the World Economic Forum's annual gathering, said Trump's support for artificial intelligence had brought together fierce corporate competitors to gather in support of the administration.
The Chronicle reached out to Tesla, Apple, Facebook and its parent company, Meta, to ask whether Musk, Cook and Zuckerberg had changed views on the importance of battling climate change. None immediately responded.
Nor did Google, whose CEO, Pichai, wrote in 2017 that he was "disappointed" in Trump's Paris Agreement withdrawal and that the company would "keep working hard for a cleaner, more prosperous future for all."
When asked about climate change and sustainability during the CNBC interview Wednesday in Davos, Benioff noted that Trump supported Benioff's initiative to plant one trillion trees. Trump announced his support in 2020.
"You have to find your way with Donald Trump on the things that he cares about," Benioff said. "And one of the things he cares about is actually things like trees, ocean and air. If you listen to what he says and you focus on those things, you can make a lot of progress."
Neil Malhotra, a political economist and professor at Stanford University, said the silence on climate represents "a general vibe shift in the world and in this country."
Whereas Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, he swept all swing states in 2024 with support from a younger and more diverse group of Americans. Malhotra said that corporate leaders see that and think, "Maybe this is the trend versus a dying gasp."
Tech leaders are "saying this is a big part of the American economy so we have to make sure we have a seat at the table," Malhotra said.
Also, in contrast to 2017 when Trump announced the withdrawal from Paris on a day in June, Trump announced his decision on his first week in office amid a deluge of other big decisions, including pulling out of the World Health Organization and taking other sharp policy stances on immigration, health and cultural issues as well as the environment.
"This is what people refer to as flooding the zone," Malhotra said. "With this strategy, nothing can emerge as dominant in the new cycle."
Stanford professor Patricia Bromley said that it is far more acceptable to dismiss proven climate science today than it was in 2016, just as it is more acceptable to be against multiculturalism, feminism and cosmopolitanism.
The general public, corporate leaders and politicians are focused on material gain and self- interest, she said – and for Silicon Valley companies, the definition of self-interest changed with the emergence of artificial intelligence.
"The energy needs of AI are really enormous," Bromley said.
Dear, the London asset manager, published a list of quotes from Cook, Zuckerberg and others from 2017 on the withdrawal from Paris and publicly questioned these corporate leaders' silence this week.
In an interview from London, Dear told the Chronicle that his firm manages US$17.5bil (RM77bil) in assets for pension funds, banks and other organisations, and they invest in many of these tech companies. He said he felt obligated to speak out publicly. His firm also sent letters this week requesting these companies clarify their stance on climate change.
"The most important thing is they still have time to respond," Dear said. – San Francisco Chronicle/Tribune News Service