A high-profile dinner, hosted by former US President Donald Trump, brought together prominent figures from the tech world at the White House. The gathering, which was originally planned for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate but moved due to weather conditions, featured many of the industry’s most influential individuals. Notably absent from the event was Elon Musk, head of X and SpaceX. The circumstances surrounding his absence have become a topic of interest.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and a competitor of Musk in the AI sector, was among those in attendance.
Other attendees included:
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Micron chief Sanjay Mehrotra, TIBCO Software chairman Vivek Ranadive, Palantir’s Shyam Sankar, Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang, Blue Origin CEO David Limp, and Shift4 Payments boss Jared Isaacman.
Responding to inquiries regarding his absence, Musk confirmed that he was invited but unable to attend. He indicated that he would be represented at the dinner. A White House official, however, provided a different perspective, stating that Musk was not on the official guest list. The reasons for Elon Musk’s absence from the dinner remain unclear.