Several of the most powerful business leaders in the country gathered around a table last night to fawn over President Donald Trump for his AI policies.
“You and your policies are really helping a lot,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told the president. AMD CEO Lisa Su praised “the amount of acceleration that we’ve seen just in the few short months that the administration has been in place.” Oracle CEO Safra Catz struck a note of adoration at “the fact that you are our president” and that Trump quickly recognized the importance of AI. “You’ve unleashed American innovation and creativity — all the work you’re doing in basically every cabinet post in addition to what’s coming out of the White House is making it possible for America to win.”
“Thank you for being such a pro-business and pro-innovation president,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman lauded. “It’s a very refreshing change. We’re very excited to see what you’re doing to make all of our companies and our entire country so successful.” He added that his company would “invest a ton in the United States.”
The round of flattery came during the public portion of a dinner Trump hosted at the White House Thursday with CEOs from many of the top tech companies working in AI, which also included those from Apple, Google, and Meta. Trump made a point of asking several of the CEOs how much they’re spending in the US in the next few years, and seemed pleased after they threw out numbers in the hundreds of billions. Earlier on Thursday, First Lady Melania Trump hosted a task force meeting on AI education where many of those companies pledged investments to educate the youth and workforce on how to use the new technology.
Each of the CEOs stand to gain — or lose — from Trump and his policies
Tech leaders’ presence at the White House has become a relatively commonplace occurrence during this administration. Many of the CEOs who attended Thursday’s dinner also showed up for Trump’s inauguration and donated to his inaugural fund. Zuckerberg had met with Trump in the West Wing shortly before the government’s antitrust trial against his company began. On Thursday, Zuckerberg — whom prior to their recent closeness, Trump has previously threatened to jail — sat right next to the president, who teased Zuckerberg at one point of having the opportunity to launch his own political career with a response to a reporter’s question.
Each of the CEOs stand to gain — or lose — from Trump and his policies. Those include everything from tariffs on semiconductors and other products, permits, access to resources like electricity to power energy-intensive AI, and more. Many of them are already engaged in legal battles with the administration over other parts of their businesses. Trump acknowledged Google’s “very good day” Wednesday when a judge denied Trump’s DOJ the most aggressive antitrust remedies it had asked for in its monopoly search case against the company. “Biden was the one that prosecuted that lawsuit,” Trump said, leaving out that his first administration had brought the complaint, and his second administration litigated the remedies trial. “It’s a long process,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said. “Appreciate that your administration had a constructive dialogue and we were able to get it to some resolution.” One or both sides could still appeal the ruling.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, whose products are largely assembled in China and who seemed to be the rare business leader in Trump’s first term who managed to walk a fine line of staying on his good side, seemed eager to maintain his good will while seated across the table from Trump Thursday. “It’s incredible to be among everyone here, particularly you and the First Lady,” Cook told Trump. “I’ve always enjoyed having dinner and interacting.” He thanked Trump for “setting the tone such that we could make a major investment in the United States” and added that it “says a lot about your focus and your leadership.”
Later, when a reporter asked about Trump’s plans to tariff semiconductors, Trump reiterated his idea that he’d deploy a “fairly substantial tariff” that could be waived if a company was planning to build in the US. “I’d say Tim Cook would be in pretty good shape,” Trump said.
