The world’s tech titans — including some of its wealthiest people — urged President Donald Trump not to leave the Paris climate agreement in 2017. When he did, they excoriated him on social media. Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter — the company he would later buy and rename to X — that leaving Paris was “not good for America or the world.” Eight years later, the world is in an even worse place as temperatures continue to shatter heat records and emissions climb relentlessly higher. At the same time, the need for energy to power data centers for artificial intelligence and other technologies has increased, which means the CEOs of Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft and Amazon could stand to gain from Trump’s mission to unleash American oil and gas. And Musk, also the chief executive of SpaceX and the artificial intelligence company xAI, is now among Trump’s biggest boosters. So when the president signed an order to exit the Paris pact again on Monday, abandoning the United States’ pledge to cut emissions, those same tech titans said ... well, nothing, as Corbin Hiar and I wrote today. Instead, most of them stood behind him (literally) and applauded as he took the oath of office, or offered congratulations on social media. “Optimistic and celebrating,” Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said shortly before co-hosting an inaugural ball. The executives’ turnabout didn’t go unnoticed among Silicon Valley’s critics. “Their silence now is cowardly, complicit in reinforcing the status quo fossil fuel economy, and shows that they care more about their own profits than the American people,” Bill Weihl, Facebook’s former director of sustainability, told Corbin and me. Many of them already faced challenges under the Biden administration — on labor, taxes and tech consolidation — even as they backed his climate policies. And the challenges of meeting their ambitious climate targets are starting to bite, particularly as they dump money into developing AI. Does Paris matter? The Paris Agreement is meant to set the goalposts as countries and companies work to cut their carbon pollution. With the U.S. federal government out of that global pact, advocates say they expect businesses to remain committed — though perhaps less vocally. Amazon spokesperson August Green said the online retailer’s pledge to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 remains intact. Still, it helps that Trump is determined to win the so-called AI arms race with China, as are many in Silicon Valley. In a speech Thursday to corporate heavyweights at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said he would unleash America’s “liquid gold” to power the data centers needed. As for the mention of climate change? Crickets. | 
