White House state dinner: Trump welcomes Xi as tech bosses, top executives arrive

US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, to the White House on Thursday for a state dinner bringing together a wide cross-section of American business, technology, media and political figures.Xi and Trump entered the White House ahead of the dinner, where both leaders are expected to deliver remarks before joining guests for a meal featuring squash, wild mushrooms and crispy pancetta.Among the high-profile technology executives attending are Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan and TikTok investor Jeff Yass.The guest list also includes senior figures from the US financial sector, including the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs. LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla are also attending.Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Laura Ingraham are among the media personalities at the dinner, while Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison is also present.Xi and Trump enter White House for dinnerXi and Peng returned to the White House for the dinner and were welcomed by Trump and Melania Trump.Trump has repeatedly described his relationship with Xi in warm terms during the Chinese leader’s visit, including saying that the two have a “great friendship”.The dinner also reflects the importance Trump has placed on business and technology ties during Xi’s visit, with executives from some of the world's biggest technology companies joining the Chinese delegation and US leadership.Anthropic absent from tech-heavy guest listDespite the presence of executives from OpenAI, Apple, Meta, X, Amazon, Google and Nvidia, Anthropic is notably absent from the guest list, according to BBC.Anthropic is one of the major US artificial intelligence companies and has taken a more cautious position on AI risks and China.Its CEO, Dario Amodei, has previously warned that China taking the lead in artificial intelligence could pose a “grave danger” to the US and the wider world. China has rejected such arguments, with its foreign ministry saying narratives about a Chinese “threat” could undermine international cooperation on AI governance.Democrats criticise summit over Taiwan, tradeThe dinner comes amid criticism from Democratic lawmakers who have accused the Trump administration of putting “pageantry” ahead of substantive issues in its engagement with Beijing.In a statement signed by 19 of the 47 members of the Democratic caucus, the lawmakers urged Trump to immediately provide billions of dollars in aid and arms sales to Taiwan and seek the release of Americans they described as wrongfully detained.They also criticised Trump's decision to loosen restrictions on sales of advanced chips to China.Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is among the technology executives attending the dinner.Dinner comes amid US-China tensionsThe high-profile gathering comes against the backdrop of unresolved disagreements between Washington and Beijing over trade, Taiwan, artificial intelligence, advanced technology and critical minerals.While the state dinner offers a public display of diplomatic warmth, the two countries continue to compete over several strategic and economic issues.Trump and Xi are expected to use the visit to discuss those differences while presenting a more cordial public face during the White House dinner.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.