Tim Cook and Elon Musk, among other tech CEOS, will accompany the US president on a trip to China
Donald Trump is heading to China this week. If his guest list is any clue, he wants to discuss technology with Xi Jinping, though perhaps after the war in Iran.
On Monday, news broke that outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook, as well as SpaceX and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, would join the US president. Other guests from the tech sphere include Meta’s recently appointed president, Dina Powell McCormick; Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of computer memory maker Micron; Chuck Robbins, CEO of longtime telecom giant Cisco; and Cristiano Amon, CEO of semiconductor maker Qualcomm, according to a White House official.
Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO – who is close to Trump but criticized the US’s limitations on chip sales to China in an April interview, saying that he didn’t want a “loser mentality” to cost the US its edge in AI – will not be joining the president. A major deal on semiconductors seems less likely without the world’s most important chip maker, though an announcement from Micron seems possible.
In Cook, Trump likely also wants to bring a friendly, familiar face to high-stakes negotiations. Apple’s iPhone 17 has proved enormously successful in China, boosting the company’s quarterly earnings to their highest point ever. Apple still manufactures most of its products in China, though it has moved a significant percentage of those operations to India and Vietnam. In Apple’s announcement of Cook’s retirement, the company highlighted his diplomatic skills and said his responsibilities would include dealing with leaders around the world, so visits like this may become a mainstay of his schedule in the future.
