Trump to host tech CEOs at White House dinner, Musk excluded | Who’s on the list?

The White House said the dinner guest list includes Bill Gates, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and about a dozen other top executives from major tech firms.

Updated on: Sep 5, 2025, 04:50:46 IST

By HT News Desk

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US President Donald Trump is set to host leading technology CEOs for a dinner at the White House on Thursday night (local time). The guest list excludes SpaceX and Tesla chief Elon Musk but features several prominent figures from major artificial intelligence and technology firms.

Once a close ally appointed by Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk publicly split with the president earlier this year. (AFP FILE)

According to the White House, the dinner was initially planned for the Rose Garden, where Trump recently replaced the grass with an arrangement of tables, chairs, and umbrellas resembling the outdoor setup at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

However, due to rain in Washington on Thursday afternoon, officials shifted the event to the State Dining Room due to bad weather, a White House official confirmed. The official requested anonymity as they were not authorised to speak publicly.

The dinner follows a Thursday afternoon meeting of the White House’s new Artificial Intelligence Education Task Force, chaired by First Lady Melania Trump, with some of the technology leaders also in attendance.

“The robots are here. Our future is no longer science fiction,” she said while opening the session.

See who’s on the list

The White House announced that the dinner guest list will feature Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, and around a dozen other senior executives from leading companies.

Among those who took part in the task force meeting earlier were Google CEO Sundar Pichai, IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna, and Code.org president Cameron Wilson.

The White House further confirmed that the dinner invitees include Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Blue Origin CEO David Limp, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, TIBCO Software chairman Vivek Ranadive, Palantir executive Shyam Sankar, Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang, and Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman.

A notable omission from the list is Elon Musk. Once considered a close ally of Trump – who had appointed him to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with streamlining government operations – Musk publicly fell out with the president earlier this year.

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HT News Desk
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