President Donald Trump Monday met with 18 of the world’s most prominent tech executives for the first of the American Technology Council meetings, calling for them to help improve government use of technology.

“Government needs to catch up with the technology revolution,” Trump told a cast of industry leaders, including Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Satya Nadella (pictured, right), Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook (left), Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos and Alphabet Inc. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. “America should be the global leader in government technology just as we are in every other aspect, and we are going to start our big edge again in technology – such an important industry,” Trump added.

The main points discussed, according to a draft of the meeting outline, was a technological infrastructure overhaul resulting in better services for U.S. citizens, a cut in spending by as much as $1 trillion with the use of more efficient technology, reducing fraud and bolstering security to prevent cyberattacks. To illustrate the importance of the latter issue, Trump invoked the cyberattacks on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during the election.

The meeting also included Vice President Mike Pence, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser. Opening the discussion, Kushner outlined how the government is going to take what he called the creativity of the private sector and make the “government more transparent and responsive to citizens.” As an example of how far the government is behind in technology, he discussed the Pentagon’s use of floppy disks and costly data centers that could be moved to the cloud.

Silicon Valley and Donald Trump have disagreed on many issues, most notably Trump’s recent decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord and issues surrounding immigration. On immigration, Trump said he would help tech companies get the talent they needed. According to Microsoft President Brad Smith, during the meeting the company had been steadfast regarding the need for “healthy high-skilled immigration and investments in education.”

Nadella and Cook were vocal in favor of a more technology-centered education system, with Cook saying coding should be on the syllabus in every public school. According to reports, Bezos discussed how his company’s commercial products could improve government IT, while Palantir Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Alex Karp talked about how Palantir data analysis could diminish fraudulent federal spending.

The White House will spend more time this month focusing on various tech-related themes, with upcoming meetings dedicated to driverless cars, drones, investments in emerging tech and 5G wireless technology.

Image: White House/YouTube