UPDATED 05:00 EDT / NOVEMBER 11 2016

NEWS

Tech CEOs call for unity following outburst of negativity over Trump victory

Shortly after Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, many big names in the tech industry expressed their deep regret at the result. Now chief executives from some of the world’s biggest tech companies have called for calm.

Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg (above), currently facing criticism over the proliferation of mendacious news articles on the social network potentially tilting the election toward Trump, said in a public statement that he was “feeling hopeful” about the result.

Zuckerberg remained vague in the statement, however. For his daughter Max, he wrote that he would like to see “the world we want for our children,” a world which would include “curing all disease, improving education, connecting everyone and promoting equal opportunity.”

Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook was equally taciturn about the victor in his letter to employees.  Like Zuckerberg, Cook concentrated his missive on improving “lives and the world at large” rather than weathering the storm of political debate. Cook invoked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “timeless” advice: “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

LinkedIn Corp. chief Jeff Weiner had at first written privately to employees at the firm but said that because of the positive response, he decided to make the letter public. Weiner talked of a “brutal” election cycle in which “emotional responses people expressed ran from shock and sadness to grief and mourning.”

Weiner also discussed the division the election caused in the U.S., what he perceived sometimes as zealotry: “The polarization and open hostility was sustained for so long that people with opposing views became more caricature than actual human beings.”

Weiner wrote about the unpredictability not just of the Trump victory but also the Brexit vote in the U.K. “No matter what our political leanings, our race, religion, gender, creed, or country of origin, we treat each other with respect, with compassion, and above all else, we take care of one another,” he wrote. “No election should ever change that.”

Photo: Facebook

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