Donald Trump has had a tetchy relationship with Silicon Valley to date, but three tech titans from the east have come bearing the very gifts that the US president seeks: investment, jobs and factories.
The trio of leaders represent three of Asia’s biggest tech groups: Masayoshi Son is founder of Japan’s SoftBank and Jack Ma founded Alibaba. Terry Gou of Foxconn, which last year manufactured an estimated $75bn worth of hardware for Apple, did not meet Mr Trump in person but dangled the prospect of a US plant.
Taken together, the three are worth about $400bn in market capitalisation and are responsible for more than 1.1m jobs. They represent a vertically integrated set of skills that starts on the factory floor with Foxconn, and handles big data (Alibaba) and investment (SoftBank).