President Donald Trump hosted a variety of top tech executives for a dinner in the White House on Wednesday, during which many in the group pledged to invest in U.S. manufacturing in the coming years.
The conversations focused on bringing the U.S. to the forefront for global innovation, especially when concerning artificial intelligence. The executives also spoke in support of AI education.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, was seated next to Trump at the dinner. He thanked the president for arranging the event and said that all the present executives were making “huge investments” in the U.S. “to build out data centers and infrastructure to power the next wave of innovation,” per Axios.
There were 33 people at the dinner, including the president and first lady, a number of tech executives and their partners.
Here are some of the prominent executives who were at the dinner, per The Wall Street Journal:
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Alphabet, Inc., and Google CEO Sundar Pichai
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
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Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella
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Apple CEO Tim Cook
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Oracle CEO Safra Catz
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg
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AMD President and CEO Lisa Su
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Open AI President Greg Brockman
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Google co-founder Sergey Brin
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Microsoft founder Bill Gates
Among all the big names of tech who attended the dinner, there was one prominent figure who did not: Trump’s former senior adviser and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
According to Axios, Musk said he was invited to the dinner but couldn’t attend. A White House spokesperson said that Tesla had been invited and confirmed that a representative would attend the event.
Trump asked each of the CEOs how much they would be spending on investing in the U.S. over the next few years.
Zuckerberg said that Meta would be spending at least $600 billion through 2028, per Axios.
“We don’t often get together as the CEOs of the different companies but it’s good to,” Zuckerberg said.
Pichai spoke about the Trump administration’s AI action plan calling it “a great start.” He shared that his company will be investing $250 billion, per The Hill.
Cook had joined Trump in the Oval Office last month to announce Apple’s latest investment. At the dinner he said his company will be investing $600 billion.
Sitting next to the first lady, Gates said he has been working on health, and touted his work on vaccines and providing health care to Africa through AI.
Gates thanked the president for “for setting the tone such that we could make a major investment in the United States and have some key manufacturing, advanced manufacturing here,” per The Hill.