President Donald Trump's business policy forum met for the first time Friday morning _ minus a few key chief executives who'd been named to the group last year.
Absent from the White House gathering were Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who quit the panel this week amid fallout over Trump's executive order on immigration, and Walt Disney Co.'s Robert Iger, who missed the forum because it overlapped with a company board meeting.
Trump announced the formation of the group, called the President's Strategic and Policy Forum, in December, saying its members would draw on their "private sector expertise" to cut through "government red tape."
He opened the meeting on Friday in the White House's State Dining Room by saying that he looked forward to discussing "all of the things that we can do to bring back our jobs, get taxes even lower. ... I want to have your input ... and hear what we have to do in terms of regulations."
Before the meeting, controversy over Trump's immigration executive order _ which banned all refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the U.S. _ led several CEOs to voice strong criticism of the president's actions.
This week, Kalanick was pressured by customers to leave the council, in part because of his initial response to the fallout over the executive order. His ride-hailing company came under fire on Jan. 28 for announcing on Twitter that it was operating normally at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport amid a taxi strike called to protest the order. Some interpreted Uber's move as an attempt to capitalize on the strike. Kalanick also released a statement on the same date that defended his decision to remain on Trump's panel.
Customers reacted harshly, and in recent days the hashtag #DeleteUber has trended on Twitter.
But Kalanick had a change of heart, telling his staff in a memo Thursday that he'd voiced concerns to Trump about the executive order and quit the council.
"Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the president or his agenda, but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that," Kalanick wrote in the memo, obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Another member of the panel, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, said in a statement Thursday that he and other council members would use the meeting to "express our objections to the recent executive order on immigration and offer suggestions for changes."
"I understand the perspective of those who object to my attending this meeting, but I believe at this time that engaging on critical issues will on balance serve the greater good," Musk said.
Other CEOs on the panel include JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Jamie Dimon, General Motors' Mary Barra and IBM's Virginia Rometty. The panel is chaired by Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of private equity firm Blackstone.
The panel will meet frequently with Trump to directly offer its knowledge and perspective to the president, according to a news release issued by Trump's transition team in December.
Iger, who is the panel's lone entertainment executive, missed the gathering after it was rescheduled to the same date as a previously scheduled Disney meeting, according to a company spokesman. Disney reports its fiscal first-quarter earnings on Tuesday.
Disney did not respond to requests to interview Iger.
