On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump hosted high-profile tech tycoons at an event in the White House where they praised him for his efforts to promote investments in chip manufacturing and AI.
Tech CEOs, Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) Tim Cook and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, said “thank you” to Trump, with some laying out how much their companies plan to invest in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported.
“Thank you for being such a pro-business, pro-innovation president. It’s a very refreshing change,” said Altman. “I think it’s going to set us up for a long period of leading the world, and that wouldn’t be happening without your leadership.”
Cook noted that Apple is expected to invest $600B in the U.S. “I want to thank you for setting the tone such that we can make a major investment in the United States and have some key manufacturing here. I think it says a lot about your leadership and focus on innovation,” said Cook, according to the report.
The dinner was planned at the newly renovated Rose Garden but was pushed inside due to rain.
Earlier in the day, several of the executives, including Altman, Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) CEO Sundar Pichai and IBM’s (NYSE:IBM) CEO and Chairman Arvind Krishna, were at the White House to attend a meeting of the White House Task Force on AI Education hosted by First Lady Melania Trump.
Companies including Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) IBM (NYSE:IBM) Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Google and OpenAI announced AI education commitments alongside Thursday’s event.
The most brilliant people are gathered at this table,” said Trump. “This is definitely a high IQ group.”
Trump opened the dinner by remarking on a vital hurdle for the tech companies — procuring enough electricity to power massive data centers needed to develop AI, the report added.
Trump’s administration has been working to remove obstacles to connect data centers to the grid, but many challenges exist at the state level, the report noted.
“I know everybody at the table indirectly through reading about you and studying, knowing a lot about your business, actually making it very easy for you in terms of electric capacity and getting it for you, getting your permits,” said Trump.
Trump, and Meta Platforms’ (NASDAQ:META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was seated next to Trump, were asked about a crackdown on speech in the U.K.
Zuckerberg, who seemed startled by the question directed at him, responded that he had not been listening, the report noted.
Trump turned to Zuckerberg and said, “This is the beginning of your political career.”
“No, it’s not,” said Zuckerberg with a chuckle.
Trump also addressed Alphabet’s CEO Sundar Pichai about a federal judge’s ruling this week on an antitrust case related to Google’s monopoly in search.
“You had a very good day yesterday,” said Trump. “Do you want to talk about that big day you had yesterday?”
“I’m glad it’s over,” responded Pichai.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was was not present at the event. People familiar with Huang’s thinking noted that he prefers to interface with the White House in one-on-one settings where the president has enough time to focus on important issues, the report added.
In addition, Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, who had a public falling out with Trump earlier this year, was not present.