Photo Tech leaders and investors, some of whom have disagreed with President Trump, met at the White House on Monday about updating government technology.
Kushner said that while he had been warned that government change could be slow, he has found "exactly the opposite" and praised the "talented civil servants" he is working with.
"The Department of Defense for example still uses 8" floppy discs on some of its legacy systems", Kushner declared hollowly, with his hollow voice. "Today, many of our agencies rely on painfully outdated technology", Trump said at an American Technology Council roundtable.
The effort is part of a broader plan to shrink government, cut federal employees, and eliminate regulations.
Kushner said government working together with the private sector would "provide citizen services in a way that has never happened before".
The CEOs joined the American Technology Council, under its director, Chris Liddell, the White House director of strategic initiatives.
President Trump's son-in-law has not done any interviews or spoken in public on behalf of the new administration, in inverse proportion to how much of the president's ear he has.
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Prior to talking to the president, these technology leaders had already conducted 10 smaller group sessions with White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to discuss innovating strategies, reforms, and potential partnership, as Reuters reported.
President Donald Trump promised "sweeping transformation" in the federal government's use of technology as he welcomed top executives from numerous world's largest tech companies to the White House. Facebook FB.O CEO Mark Zuckerberg was invited but could not attend because of a conflict, the company said.
Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) is also attending the meeting. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he would leave three presidential councils over the decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. No comment from Apple or White House so far.
One working group, in particular, exclusively addressed the H-1B immigration issue, which has been one of the major concerning issues many of these technology companies hold against this administration.
The federal government spends more than $80 billion annually on information technology, employing about 113,000 IT professionals, according to the White House. Intel unveiled plans at the Oval Office in February to invest more than $7 billion in an Arizona factory, a move that Trump portrayed as a win for US workers.
Trump's meeting with the tech CEOs is expected to last for four hours.
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