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- Gowynne gone again… - 5th June 2025
During 23 years with the BBC, and a 41 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, it was always intriguing to watch as the absurd praise of high-profile individuals for a dubious senior figure brought no financial reward, so they changed their tune, and this is now highlighted by the bosses of big tech firms today watching nervously as the tariffs of the man they had prostrated themselves before (Donald Trump), hit them in the pocket.
It was always fascinating to see.
I remember once a senior politician in the UK Government he was part of who I had secretly filmed, threw his papers at me because he didn’t like my questions to him about what was happening now, with the opinion polls turning sour.
On another occasion a business woman actually walked out of one of my television interviews because I had had the audacity to ask why she had praised someone I revealed was a crook.
All of this has been put at the forefront of my mind by monitoring what is now taking place a few months into the administration of Donald Trump.
In the first few weeks after his re-election, the bosses of the tech giants worked hard to ingratiate themselves with the returning president, congratulating him publicly, and dutifully turning up to his inauguration.
For example Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Meta, gushed that it was nice to have an administration that was “proud” of America’s tech champions.
There was good financial reason by them for the obsequiousness.
During the campaign Mr Trump referred to Meta as an “enemy of the people”, and many in his MAGA movement have accused the tech heavyweights of censoring right-wing views.
In 2021 J.D. Vance, now Mr Trump’s vice-president, called the behemoths “parasitic”.
Even the techies surrounding Mr Trump, such as (formerly – they have now fallen out spectacularly) Elon Musk, belong to a different Silicon Valley tribe that is suspicious of big tech.
Three months in, and the leaders of America’s most valuable firms have little to show for all their toadying.
Mr Trump appears unwilling to spare them from the trustbuster’s snare, and is adding to their troubles with his trade war using tariffs.
On April 29 the White House accused Amazon of a “hostile and political act” after the company was reported to be planning to display the cost of tariffs for items sold through its website.
Amazon swiftly clarified that the idea had been considered only for Amazon Haul, where it sells ultra-cheap products, and that it would not be implemented anyway.
Mr Trump also said he intended to scrutinise a plan by the Pentagon that could end in a multi-billion dollar contract being awarded to the firm, and they didn’t like that.
Since Mr Trump’s inauguration the combined market value of the five big platforms—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft—plus Nvidia, America’s semiconductor superstar, has fallen by $2.3 trillion, or 16 per cent.
So they must be wondering why they crawled to the new man in charge (or stroked his ego – perhaps Sir Keir Starmer should take note) in the first place.
This may not be so good for them – but it is always fine to watch these things happening, as I have done many times!
The memories of Phil’s astonishing, decades long award-winning career in journalism (when reversals of fortune after people ingratiated themselves with a leader were often witnessed), as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in the book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Tomorrow – why landlords in Wales have condemned official policy and warned they are pulling out of the rental market because of red tape, after a big rise in complaints about sub-standard accommodation.
