On the 4th (local time), U.S. President Donald Trump is set to host a dinner with big tech leaders in the newly renovated White House Rose Garden.
According to Reuters and other foreign media, citing White House officials, the dinner will feature prominent figures from the tech industry, including Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta; Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple; Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft (MS); and Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google; Safra Catz, the CEO of Oracle; David Limp, the CEO of Blue Origin; and Satya Nadella, the CEO of MS, are also expected to attend. However, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, who had a public falling out with President Trump earlier this year over budget bills, was not included in the invitation list.
Prior to the dinner, a separate event related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) hosted by First Lady Melania Trump will take place at the White House. Last month, Mrs. Trump launched the ‘Presidential AI Challenge,’ encouraging students to use the latest AI technology to find solutions to community problems.
Reuters described this gathering as indicative of the evolving relationship between President Trump and Silicon Valley. During Trump’s first term, the technology industry clashed with him over content moderation and antitrust investigations, but in his second term, tech companies seemed to align more closely with the government’s policies in an effort to gain favor with President Trump.
Meanwhile, recent renovations of the White House Rose Garden involved replacing the grass with stone paving and setting up outdoor tables. These changes reflect President Trump’s dissatisfaction with the grass being unsuitable for large-scale events, and are reminiscent of the atmosphere at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.