14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella responded to US President-elect Donald Trump’s call for local companies to keep jobs in the country, saying that the software giant would only continue its vision without any impact on the domestic workforce.
Speaking for CNNTech at the DLD tech conference in Munich, Nadella explained that Microsoft is already one of the largest employers in the United States, so there’s no need to worry that changes promised by Donald Trump would affect its business.
“We're a U.S.-based company that operates worldwide and our predominant employment is in the United States. We've already created a tremendous amount of high-paying jobs in the U.S. If anything, we'll double down on what we've always done, which is be a U.S. company that operates in the United States very responsibly, but also being a multinational company that contributes into every country that we work in,” Nadella said.
In a series of tweets posted on January 15, President-elect Donald Trump reiterated his intention to convince American companies to keep jobs in the country and focus less on overseas activities.
“The Democrats are most angry that so many Obama Democrats voted for me. With all of the jobs I am bringing back to our Nation, that number will only get higher. Car companies and others, if they want to do business in our country, have to start making things here again,” he said.
Preparing for Trump’s Twitter storm
And because Donald Trump turns to Twitter so often to express his intentions, but also to criticize companies or officials publicly, T-Mobile CEO John Legere believes that it would be smart for tech firms to have a dedicated Twitter strategy specifically prepared to answer these accusations whenever they are made.
Dropbox COO Dennis Woodside himself agreed with this idea, although he did emphasize that chatting with Donald Trump on Twitter might be more difficult than anyone expects.
“It's crazy, but yes. I'm not sure what that strategy would be, [but] I don't think you want to get into a tweetstorm with Donald Trump,” he said.
Microsoft itself hasn’t been a target in Trump’s tweets, and this is probably one of the reasons the CEO is confident the software giant is on the safe side in this US jobs saga. For what it’s worth, Microsoft has nearly 113,000 workers, 64,000 of them in the United States.