Google's Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella were among the several influential tech CEOs that US President Donald Trump hosted for a dinner at the White House on Friday. At the table, both Nadella and Pichai, like others, took turns to speak, and heaped big praise on the Republican.
While Sundar Pichai hailed Trump's AI action plan, Nadella praised the market access the President "championed" for the technology industry.
"The AI moment is one of the most transformative moments any of us have ever seen or will see in our lifetimes...the AI Action Plan, under your leadership, I think is a great start, and we look forward to working together, and thanks for your leadership," Pichai, a Tamil Nadu-born CEO, was heard telling Trump at the dinner table.
Meanwhile, Nadella, a Hyderabad-born Indian-origin CEO, noted that the world has placed trust in the American technology. "Everything that you're doing in terms of setting in place the platform where the rest of the world can not only use our technology, but trust our technology more than any other alternative, is perhaps the most important issue," Nadella said, adding that Trump's policies helped a lot.
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, Nadella, a Hyderabad-born Indian-origin CEO, noted that the world has placed trust in the American technology. "Everything that you're doing in terms of setting in place the platform where the rest of the world can not only use our technology, but trust our technology more than any other alternative, is perhaps the most important issue," Nadella said, adding that Trump's policies helped a lot.
{{/usCountry}}After Pichai and Nadella's remarks, Trump told them both that they were doing a good job.
The Indian-origin CEOs' praise for Trump comes at a time when India and the US are witnessing strains over the imposition of 50% tariffs on Indian imports. Trump also recently announced that he would impose tariffs on semiconductor imports from companies that don't shift base to the US.
Apart from Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, there were three other Indian-origin CEOs at the dinner: Micron’s Sanjay Mehrotra, TIBCO Software chairman Vivek Ranadive, and Palantir executive Shyam Sankar.
Apart from them, popular names like Meta's Mark Zuckerberg Google founder Sergey Brin, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and founder Greg Brockman, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Blue Origin CEO David Limp, Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang, were also among the invitees.
The dinner took place at the White House's Rose Garden, which was recently redecorated.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk skipped the dinner, which he had said he was invited to. Musk and Trump had a very public falling out a few months back over the 'Big Beautiful Bill', which Musk was against. While the Trump administration rallied behind the bill, Musk said it would increase the federal deficit.