Google chief executive officer Sundar Pichai on Friday went to Washington to discuss concerns about the company’s business practices with members of the US Congress and emerged with an invitation to meet with US President Donald Trump during an upcoming roundtable.
US National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow extended the invitation while meeting with Pichai and the offer was accepted, the White House said.
Other “Internet stakeholders” are to be invited to the same roundtable with Trump, the White House said, with other details, including the date, still to come.
Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump has accused Google of rigging the results of its influential search engine to suppress conservative viewpoints and highlight coverage from media that he says distribute “fake news.”
Google has denied any political bias.
The White House said that Kudlow on Friday discussed the Internet and the economy with Pichai, and described the talks as “positive and productive.”
Pichai made the rounds in Washington just a few weeks after he and his boss, Google cofounder Larry Page, irked lawmakers by skipping a public hearing.
There was plenty to talk about, based on remarks by both lawmakers and Trump.
That includes reports that Google is poised to re-enter China with a search engine generating censored results to comply with the demands of that country’s communist government, as well as reports about potential new regulations that would define how much personal information that Internet companies can collect about people using their services.
Trump and some US lawmakers have been raising the possibility of asking government regulators to investigate whether Google has abused its power to thwart competition through its dominant search engine and other widely used services.
Pichai’s meeting with about two dozen Republican lawmakers was held in the Capitol office of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who represents a district in Google’s home state of California.
Before the meeting with Republican lawmakers, Pichai also said he planned to meet with Democrats.
“These meetings will continue Google’s long history of engaging with Congress, including testifying seven times this year,” he said.
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