Trump-Xi dinner puts AI and tech giants in the spotlight: Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang in attendance

Trump's White House dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping was a major gathering of US tech and business leaders, highlighting technology as a prominent part of Xi's US visit. The dinner was attended by several prominent Silicon Valley figures from the technology industry, putting AI, chips, technology, and business in the spotlight.

The White House dinner guest list consisted of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Apart from the big names, over 130 guest reported to attend the dinner, consisting of business leaders and senior US and Chinese officials.

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According to Bloomberg, the seating arrangement also highlights the importance of the technology sector. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sat at the same table as Trump and Xi, along with Apple CEO Tim Cook and AMD CEO Lisa Su.

The dinner included executives from several other major technology and industrial companies, including Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg. AI was expected to be an important topic in Trump's meeting with Xi. Trump had already said AI would be a “big topic of discussion.” The US and China are also dealing with tensions over advanced AI chips, access to technology and the development of AI systems.

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Alongside tech leaders, the dinner was also attended by several other prominent names and business personalities, including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and others.

However, the dinner put the technology sector firmly in the spotlight as Trump and Xi discussed issues shaping the future of AI and advanced computing, and the guest list underscored how closely the US-China relationship is now tied to technology.