The White House invited more than 30 current or former US CEOs, mostly from tech, to President Donald Trump’s Thursday state dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping; Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Tim Cook and Lisa Su sat at the head table.
The invite list also included executives from banking, automakers and pharmaceuticals; the Chinese business delegation was notably absent. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has spoken against government regulation of AI in recent days, a position Trump has often echoed.
Trump said the US-China relationship was built on commerce and mutual respect. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said earlier in the week he was optimistic about the relationship and believed both sides would want AI to benefit their citizens, with safety an important consideration.
