US President Donald Trump hosted a high-powered dinner for top tech executives at the White House, with notable attendees including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and Satya Nadella.
The dinner, initially planned for the newly revamped Rose Garden but shifted to the State Dining Room due to bad weather, aimed to discuss artificial intelligence and innovation.
However, one prominent figure was noticeably absent – Elon Musk.
Musk, once a close ally of Trump, had a public falling out with the president after criticizing his flagship economic bill as a “disgusting abomination”.
Trump retaliated by stripping Musk’s ally Jared Isaacman of a NASA nomination and mocking Musk as “crazy” and a “big-time drug addict”.
The rift between the two has not healed, and Musk’s absence was a clear indication of their strained relationship.
Musk posted on X that he had been invited but was unable to attend, sending a representative instead ¹.
During the dinner, Trump asked each executive to share how much their companies were investing in America.
Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, said $250 billion in the US over the next two years, while Mark Zuckerberg mentioned Meta’s plan to invest $600 billion in the country.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, revealed that his company is investing around $75-80 billion in the US this year. Trump praised these investments, emphasizing job creation and economic growth.
The dinner followed a meeting of the White House’s new Artificial Intelligence Education task force, chaired by Melania Trump. The task force aims to shape how American schools introduce AI to the next generation.
According to the White House, the goal is to set the rules of the new age, not merely react to them. First Lady Melania Trump warned that “the robots are here” and emphasized the responsibility to prepare America’s children for an AI-driven future.
Other notable attendees included Sergey Brin, Google co-founder; Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI CEO and co-founder, respectively; Sanjay Mehrotra, Micron CEO; Vivek Ranadive, TIBCO chairman; Shyam Sankar, Palantir CTO; Safra Catz, Oracle CEO; David Limp, Blue Origin CEO; Alexandr Wang, Scale AI founder and CEO; and Jared Isaacman, Shift4 Payments CEO.
The dinner showcased the growing influence of Indian-American executives in Silicon Valley and Washington, with Trump seeking to build relationships with key players in the industry.