A high-profile White House dinner on artificial intelligence turned into something closer to a loyalty exercise, with top technology leaders taking turns to thank President Donald Trump for his role in promoting investment in U.S. chip manufacturing and AI. The event, hosted by First Lady Melania Trump, brought together some of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley and beyond.
According to The Wall Street Journal, those present included Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI chief Sam Altman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, IBM’s Arvind Krishna, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Each was invited to make remarks, which largely centred on praising Trump’s pro-business stance.
Altman described Trump as “such a pro-business, pro-innovation president,” pointedly contrasting his approach with the Biden administration. Cook highlighted Apple’s $600 billion American Manufacturing Program, which repackaged existing domestic investments, crediting Trump’s “tone and leadership” for enabling it.
Trump, for his part, used the gathering to needle his critics. Turning to Pichai, he referenced this week’s favourable court ruling that allowed Google to maintain its search agreements. “You had a very good day yesterday,” Trump said, before reminding him that “Biden was the one who prosecuted that lawsuit.” Pichai’s only reply: “I’m glad it’s over.”
Notably absent were Tesla and xAI chief Elon Musk, and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, whose companies are central to AI hardware
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