White House guest list features leaders of America’s biggest AI and technology companies as Washington and Beijing grapple with escalating tech rivalry Nearly all of America’s most powerful technology executives joined US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a lavish White House state dinner on Thursday, as artificial intelligence emerged as a major theme of the Chinese leader’s visit. Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Apple chairman Tim Cook, AMD chief Lisa Su, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan and Dell Technologies chief Michael Dell were also invited. Major financial and industry executives also attended, including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg. However, one prominent Silicon Valley name was missing. Anthropic – the developer of Claude AI models and one of OpenAI’s biggest rivals in the US – was not represented.
Its CEO, Dario Amodei, is among the industry’s more vocal advocates for tighter safeguards around increasingly powerful AI systems. Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel was also absent, though he was in Berlin that night and accepting the 2026 Axel Springer Award. His CIA-seeded data-mining giant has become one of Silicon Valley’s biggest defense-tech players, providing AI and analytics software to all six branches of the US military, as well as the FBI, NSA and DIA. Its technology is also used by NATO and the Israeli and Ukrainian militaries, as the company faces continued criticism for its expanding role in AI-enabled surveillance and warfare.
Intel, IBM and Oracle were also absent from the guest list, which otherwise featured most of America’s biggest technology and AI companies. There was also a notable absence on the other side of the table: no Chinese corporate executives were listed, despite earlier expectations that business leaders might join Xi. Instead, his dinner delegation was made up of senior Chinese officials. The concentration of American tech executives came as Trump and Xi discussed the increasingly intense US-China competition in artificial intelligence and advanced semiconductors.
Last Thursday, Xi said the two countries have a responsibility to ensure AI remains “under human control” and developed for the benefit of people. Meanwhile, Trump said AI — which he broadly refers to as “superintelligence” — is high on the summit’s agenda, while reiterating his opposition to slowing progress through sweeping regulation.
Washington also proposed establishing a mechanism that would allow the two countries to notify each other of serious AI-related incidents, an idea that top economic officials discussed before the summit. The dinner was followed by about 90 minutes of talks between Trump and Xi at the White House, where the two sides also addressed trade, Taiwan and the ongoing conflict involving Iran.
Washington and Beijing agreed earlier this week to extend their existing trade truce for two months while negotiations continue. Trump used his toast to emphasize cooperation despite the conflict, saying the two leaders represent “different systems” but can continue to build a relationship that promotes prosperity and security. strengthening.
The dinner capped a day of elaborate ceremonies at the White House, including a military review and a separate flyover featuring a B-2 Spirit and four F-22 Raptors. Trump also revealed that earlier in the day, he had presented Xi with a roughly three-foot-tall bald eagle statue designed by an American artist in collaboration with the president and first lady, calling the bird a symbol of America’s “free and soaring spirit.” Details of Xi’s gift were not immediately disclosed.