In what is poised to be a meeting between two of the world’s most powerful leaders, US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, this week, the 79-year-old American commander-in-chief will predictably be accompanied by dozens of top US officials and business moguls. Given the US’s role in accelerating innovation in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, numerous tech CEOs are also slated to be on Trump’s side during the forthcoming Chinese visit.
The delegation will include Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple boss Tim Cook, and 15 other US executives, according to information shared by a White House official with multiple leading outlets, including Reuters and the BBC.
One can’t help but notice that Trump’s CEO support system for the two-day China summit brings together a cumulative net worth exceeding hundreds of billions of US dollars, even as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s absence heavily weighing on the China summit.
All billionaire CEOs set to accompany Trump on China visit
Musk, aka the richest person in the world, is now close to becoming the first-ever trillionaire, boasting a net worth of $827.5 billion, as of today, according to Forbes. Add the net worth of his fellow billionaire CEOs ready to embark on a flight to China, and you get a group worth a combined $870 billion, according to Forbes’ estimates.
The jaw-dropping figures include the net worth of Tesla’s Elon Musk, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman ($40.5 billion), Apple CEO Tim Cook ($2.9 billion), General Electric’s chief H. Lawrence “Larry” Culp ($1.8 billion), and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink ($1.3 billion).
Beyond this quintet of billionaires, other CEOs expected to travel to Beijing this week presumably also boast net worths in the millions or hundreds of millions of US dollars. However, most of these numbers haven’t been disclosed directly on reliable public platforms, such as Forbes and Bloomberg.
The remaining high-profile figures, including CEOs and other top executives, in the list are:
- Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon
- Indian-origin Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra
- Boeing’s CEO Kelly Ortberg
- Former US government official and Meta’s President and Vice Chair Dina Powell McCormick
- Qualcomm’s CEO and President Christiano Amon
- Illumina CEO Jacob Thaysen
- MasterCard President Michael Miebach
- Visa Inc’s CEO Ryan McInerney
- Cargill’s Chairperson Brian Sikes
- Citigroup’s CEO Jane Fraser
- Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins
- Coherent CEO Jim Anderson
Although included in the original invite list, Cisco’s Chuck Robbins won’t be able to attend the summit, the company told The New York Times.
Note: This list includes all those invited to the event. However, it still remains to be seen how many of these executives will actually travel to Beijing for this week’s summit.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is absent from the list of invitees
The original list notably excluded Nvidia boss Jensen Huang despite his chip-making company being at the centre of the US vs China rivalry on AI and computer chips. Despite the invite list including the likes of Elon Musk and Tim Cook, Huang was not invited due to the White House focusing more on agriculture and commercial aviation matters, Reuters reported earlier.
Having long consolidated himself as a fixture in Washington since the MAGA leader returned to office in 2025, Huang has often emerged as a close advisor to Trump on artificial intelligence. He was seen with the US president as recently as last month during King Charles III’s visit to the country.
His absence would’ve been even more pronounced, as just last week, the Nvidia boss told CNBC that it would be a “privilege” to join Trump on the trip and represent the US in China if he were invited. Although Forbes estimates that he is already worth $190.5 billion, Huang’s absence from Beijing could now emerge as a setback in Nvidia’s bid to sell AI chips to China.
Last year, he made a bold prediction that the Chinese AI market could reach about $50 billion in the coming years. Noting that selling to China would generate taxes, revenue, and “lots of jobs” in the US, Huang told CNBC, “we just have to stay agile” regarding the opportunity, all while Washington and Beijing continued to go back and forth in a much-stretched-out tariff war.
UPDATE: Despite previous reports, Jensen Huang joined Trump in China. On May 12 (US time), the Nvidia CEO was seen boarding Air Force One for his Beijing trip in pictures circulating online. The chip-marker also confirmed the news to CNBC in a statement, saying, “Jensen is attending the summit at the invitation of President Trump to support America and the administration’s goals.”
The US outlet also reported that Trump was prompted to call the Nvidia boss after seeing the media coverage of Huang’s absence from the business delegation.