Trump to meet with Google CEO, social media companies later this month

President Trump is set to meet with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other technology industry representatives later this month, a top White House official announced Tuesday.

National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow told reporters that a date isn’t set for the meeting, but he expects it to be in mid-October. He said he is hopeful that Facebook and Twitter also send representatives for the meeting.

“We’re going to have a little conference. The president will preside over it. We will have the big internet companies, the big social media companies, search companies, and some who are dissatisfied with those companies,” he said.

Google and Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

{mosads}Pichai committed to the meeting during a previous meeting with Kudlow last week, the White House official said Tuesday. Kudlow called his meeting with Pichai “constructive” and said the Google CEO was “extremely cooperative.”

The expected gathering of industry officials with Trump would follow a tenuous period in the relationship between technology companies and the White House.

In September, Trump publicly criticized Facebook, Google and Twitter, accusing them of being biased against conservatives and saying that the former two raised a “very antitrust situation.”

“Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices. Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won’t let that happen. They are closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others…….” Trump wrote in one tweet on Aug. 18.

“I won’t mention names but when they take certain people off of Twitter or Facebook and they’re making that decision, that is really a dangerous thing because that could be you tomorrow,” Trump later said during an interview with Reuters.

Trump’s attacks followed increasingly critical rhetoric from lawmakers of technology companies.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has spearheaded the attacks of big technology companies being biased against conservatives.

McCarthy, along with a group of other House Republicans, met with Pichai last week. McCarthy called the meeting “productive.”

The House Judiciary Committee has said that Pichai has agreed to testify before the panel by the end of the year.