Former Sun Micro CEO Scott McNealy, known for his provocative quotes, says Trump is doing a 'spectacular job' amid the coronavirus crisis. That's not how many tech experts see it.

• Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun Microsystems who was famous for his provocative statements, praised President Trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis saying, "He's doing a spectacular job."
• McNealy also said he is glad a business leader is in charge, arguing that, "The worst CEO is 1,000 times better than the best politician."
• McNealy also expressed concerns about the duration of the shelter-in-place policy in California where he lives, arguing it could lead to the erosion of individual rights.
• McNealy was quickly rebuked by veteran tech experts. "I don't want politicians running my companies," Stanford professor Paul Saffo told Business Insider. "And I also don't want businessmen in political offices. They're two entirely different kinds of skills. That has been demonstrated again and again and again."
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A controversial tech executive known for his provocative statements has done it again.

Now, Scott McNealy, the former CEO of Sun Microsystems, is weighing in on the man in charge of leading the fight against the coronavirus in the US. Amid intense criticism of President Donald Trump's handling of the pandemic, McNealy offers a different view: the nation, he argues, is fortunate to have a business leader in the White House at this critical time.

" I think Trump's doing a spectacular job," he told Business Insider. "I'm so glad we have a businessman in charge right now. The worst CEO is going to be 1,000 times better than the best politician."

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Trump's Silicon Valley allies

McNealy's statement underscores the libertarian, staunchly pro-big business support Trump enjoys in the tech world, where he can count on such allies as Oracle execs Larry Ellison and CEO Safra Catz and investor Peter Thiel. But it quickly drew rebukes from tech experts who followed McNealy's career and who lambasted what one of them called a "ridiculous statement" about what many view as a disastrous presidency.

McNealy became a tech rock star in the 1990s as co-founder and CEO of Sun Microsystems, one of the big success stories of the dot-com boom.

Sun dominated the market for servers used by businesses, led by startups, in the rush to build new businesses on the newly launched World Wide Web.

McNealy became famous for his feud with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose company was accused of abusing its dominant market position and was the target of antitrust lawsuits in the 1990s. McNealy testified before the US Senate where he compared Gates to Pacman and routinely referred to Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer as "Ballmer and Butthead."

McNealy was also known for being strongly against government regulation, poo-pooing worries about consumer privacy by saying, "You have zero privacy, get over it."

The rise and fall of Sun

But Sun struggled after the dot-com tech crash in 2000-2002. It suffered another blow in the Great Recession and was subsequently sold to Oracle in 2010. McNealy kept a low profile after the sale, but took the CEO post at Wayin, a social media marketing startup, in 2015. In March, as the coronavirus crisis was intensifying, McNealy joined the board of another startup, Aviso, which helps businesses use AI to boost sales.

McNealy said the coronavirus crisis is "certainly unlike any I've ever seen before."

His praise for Trump's handling of the crisis is not surprising. McNealy is one of Trump's few friends in Silicon Valley, and hosted a fundraising event for the president last September. Ellison, a close friend of McNealy's, also hosted a Trump event in February, triggering protests by some Oracle employees.

McNealy has complied with the shelter-in-place order in California. But he echoed the worry of many in the corporate world - and expressed even by Trump - that the lockdown may go on far too long and could have a far too serious impact on the economy.

In an interesting twist, the coronavirus crisis finds McNealy again on the opposite side of his onetime rival Bill Gates in the debate over how to end the crisis.

Gates, who recently stepped down as a Microsoft director and whose foundation is deeply involved in the fight against COVID-19, has joined public health experts in arguing that reopening the economy before the pandemic is under control would be "very irresponsible."

'I believe in personal responsibility'

McNealy's view was distinctly libertarian: He said he's worried about the government "overreaching and taking our liberties and making us less personally responsible."

"I believe in personal responsibility, not somebody else telling me what I have to do," he said. "We are losing and giving up our rights and liberties in ways that I just never thought would happen in my lifetime."

While public officials may be doing the right thing currently, he suggested that he was uneasy with the power being given to public officials on the frontlines of the coronavirus battle, "the little mayor of the town I'm in right now, the county managers, the governors and even the federal government."

In fact, McNealy stressed, he would rather have business people in charge, even though he noted that Trump, whose businesses have filed for bankruptcy several times, did not exactly have a stellar record as a business leader.

"Trump is clearly not a good CEO," he said. "But I look at all my CEO peers out there. I think all of them will be doing a spectacular job."

McNealy's comments drew strong reactions from tech experts who followed his career. His views on the superiority of CEOs was particularly stunning to some.

"What a ridiculous statement," analyst Steve Allen of S2C Partners told Business Insider.

Paul Saffo, a veteran Silicon Valley futurist and a professor at the Stanford School of Engineering, argued that politicians shouldn't be running companies. "And I don't want businessmen in political offices," he told Business Insider. "They're two different worlds, two entirely different kinds of skills. That has been demonstrated again and again and again."

Dangerous views

Analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies Associates called Trump "a national disaster" and suggested that McNealy's opinions on how the pandemic should be handled are dangerous.

"Scott McNealy should shut up and sit down and start taking advice from epidemiologists and public policy experts," Kay told Business Insider.

Even tech experts who see the advantages of having business leaders serving in government rejected McNealy's view.

"I could support Scott by saying a good CEO, one that was adequately trained and exhibited the appropriate behavior, could be a great president if they learned the political side of the job," analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group told Business Insider. "But a lousy CEO who lacks the core skills needed for that job and shows no inclination to learn either the old or new job will be a disaster waiting to happen.I believe we are seeing the latter play out real-time with this virus."

Robert Siegel, a veteran Silicon Valley venture capitalist and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business where McNealy got his MBA, called his remark about the superiority of CEOs over politicians "gross hyperbole."

He cited as a counter-example the performance of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a politician who has won rave reviews for his handling of the pandemic in New York City and his daily updates on the crisis broadcast live on TV.

"He's incredible," he told Business Insider. "Cuomo's there trying to keep people alive. And you're gonna say that he's incompetent? Really?"

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