AI chiefs Altman, Huang, and Cook set for Trump's Sept. 24 state dinner with Xi

The September 24 White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping has become the most coveted ticket in Washington — and the guest list reads less like a diplomatic reception than a roll call of the global AI industry.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will attend, confirmed by the company's Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane on CBS Mornings. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is expected to be there, according to sources cited by the New York Post and Semafor. Apple's Tim Cook is also reported to be attending. Former White House AI czar David Sacks will be among the guests as well, NBC News reported, citing a person familiar with the plans.

The president enjoys entertaining. And he knows what an attraction the White House is.— Longtime Trump associate

The concentration of AI power at a dinner nominally about US-China relations reflects how central the technology has become to the two countries' rivalry. Trump has repeatedly cited the need to beat China in AI as a reason to avoid regulatory guardrails. Chinese officials, for their part, recently rebuked Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's essay calling for AI regulation, dismissing it as 'fearmongering,' according to Semafor.

Whether the dinner produces any concrete movement on AI safety cooperation remains an open question. House Speaker Mike Johnson referenced discussions about a separate, adjacent White House meeting with AI CEOs next week, though his office declined to provide further details, Semafor reported. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was described as open to discussing 'shared risks' around AI during his own meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York City this weekend — talks intended to lay groundwork for the Trump-Xi summit, according to Axios as cited by Semafor.

The dinner itself has been a logistical and diplomatic flashpoint before a single guest has arrived. China asked for half the seats at the table, NPR reported, prompting significant White House pushback. The final guest list was still being negotiated as of this week, a US official told the New York Post. The East Room, where Trump hosted Britain's King Charles III in April, holds roughly 150 people — a constraint that caused such chaos at that earlier dinner that White House staff were moved to the Map Room basement to make room for billionaires who called Trump personally to request extra tickets for their spouses.

Many of the tech and finance figures now angling for seats at the Xi dinner are the same ones who traveled to Beijing with Trump in May, a group that included Elon Musk, Huang, Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman, and Facebook's Dina Powell, according to the New York Post. Huang and Schwarzman also attended the King Charles dinner.

First Lady Melania Trump is heavily involved in planning the event. She posted a video to social media this week previewing the flower arrangements, crystal champagne flutes, and a dinner program with a bright red cover, the New York Post reported. A new permanent granite helipad on the South Lawn and freshly repainted North Portico columns are also ready for Xi's arrival.

The dinner caps a week that begins with Trump attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where he is expected to meet world leaders including British Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Gulf leaders to discuss the war in Iran.

Beyond the guest list, the broader US-China relationship remains strained. The two countries are still in a tariff war, with Xi matching Trump's moves, and tensions persist over China's purchase of Iranian oil, its trade relationship with Russia, potential US arms sales to Taiwan, and competing ambitions in the Indo-Pacific, according to the New York Post.

Why it matters — The presence of America's top AI executives at a US-China state dinner signals that artificial intelligence — who leads it, who regulates it, and whether rivals cooperate on its risks — has moved from a tech policy debate to the center of great-power diplomacy.

Reported by politico.com, nbcnews.com, semafor.com, nypost.com