Trump hosted an exclusive dinner on Thursday at the White House’s newly renovated Rose Garden, gathering tech leaders from across the industry.
Among the notable attendees were Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, along with over a dozen other executives from leading AI and tech companies.
However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who was once the face of Trump’s White House DOGE office, was notably absent.
The White House confirmed that a representative from Musk’s team would attend in his place.
Musk’s absence follows a public falling out with Trump earlier this year, although the former president has expressed confidence that Musk will eventually return to the GOP fold.
Who all attended the event?
Sam Altman, Sundar Pichai, Alexandr Wang, Lisa Su, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, Cameron Wilson, Satya Nadella were some of the major attendees of the dinner.
Social media is unhappy with the dinner
A post on TeamBlind slammed the dinner hosted by Trump. A user wrote on TeamBlind, “First it was Tim Cook but now it seems almost every tech leader is bowing down to Trump . Is this country really going to be okay? Is this simply the rise and complete start of the oligarchic reign and collaboration between tech billionaires and politicians to rule the country?.”
They continued, “Trump telling Zuck that this was the beginning of his political career honestly freaks me out — are tech billionaires going to be running for president? Musk who broke up with Trump and Jensen Huang were not there lmao. Honestly the government and the tech billiionaires situation is such a joke. What are your thoughts lmao. Honestly kudos to Jensen Huang for not showing up.”
Netizens also stated their opinion on the post. A user noted, “We all voted for this.”
Anoter claimed,” Every relevant enterprise listed on the stock market kneels to each sitting president. It’s the norm, not an exception during Trump’s presidency. Trump just likes to make a spectacle of it compared to his predecessors who pulled the strings behind the scenes. During Biden’s presidency, all enterprises kneeled and spent billions on DEI and ESG initiatives.”
“I mean what was your reaction when tech leaders met Biden during early 2021?,” criticised another.
“Trump needs them more than they need him at this point. Trump must know that the entire US economy depends on their capital expenditures. Regardless of what the meeting was officially about, I guarantee you that the goal of it was to ensure that their companies continue pouring money into AI CapEx,” claimed a user.
“Trump could easily be a manager at Amazon,” stated a netizen.
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