Politics

IBM CEO on Trump tweets: CEOs need to take right actions for their companies

IBM CEO talks 'new collar' jobs in tech
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IBM CEO talks 'new collar' jobs in tech

In the wake of recent tweets by President-elect Donald Trump against U.S. corporations, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty told CNBC on Monday that business leaders need to take the right actions for their companies.

"Many of us are global companies. Of course we have workforces around the world," she said in an interview with CNBC's "Closing Bell" from outside the FinTech Ideas Festival in San Francisco.

"We, like others, will continue to do the right thing for our own business and do the right thing for IBM."

Most recently, Trump has taken companies like Toyota and General Motors to task. Last week, he threatened Toyota with a large border tax if it builds a new plant outside the U.S. and he attacked General Motors on making one of its Chevy Cruze models in Mexico.

Rometty, a member of Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum, wrote to Trump shortly after his election victory, advocating the creation of "new collar" information technology jobs.

That's because one of the most important topics that should be worked on is job creation, she told CNBC.

"For the jobs of the future here, there are many in technology that can be done without a four-year college degree," Rometty said.

Instead, potential employees can get six years of training in "pathways to technology" schools, which is akin to four years of high school and two years of community college or six years of high school, she said.

She anticipates the creation of about 25,000 jobs over the next several years, including in areas like cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.