Top CEOs and tech leaders have jumped at the chance to be in President Trump’s good graces, a theme of the second administration that was on display in the State Dining room on Thursday night.
The president’s economic policies, between sweeping tariffs, instability at the Federal Reserve and unemployment ticking up, have led to headaches in the business community but it has also served as a major incentive for CEOs to get face time with Trump.
Aside from help navigating new global trade relations and the volatile stock market, top leaders also want a part of the boost in data center construction, artificial intelligence (AI) policy and a hand in pending antitrust cases.
“Sometimes it’s a bit of a circus but they feel like he hears them. In that sense, they feel like he compares more favorably,” a senior Washington lobbyist described. “It’s the only chance you get of getting something out of it. You have to kiss the ring, you have to show up. That’s just the way it is.”
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, and Apple CEO Tim Cook were part of a group of over two dozen high profile tech and business leaders who went to Thursday night’s event, during which Trump asked them to say how much their companies are investing in U.S. manufacturing.
Trump has sold his tariff plan, which has shaken up how companies operate and their bottom-lines, as a way to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. He pitches to companies that the way to not get hit with high tariffs is to produce at home.
At the dinner, Zuckerberg told Trump his company plans to invest at least $600 billion in the U.S. through 2028.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, said his company will be investing $250 billion.
And, Cook said his company will be investing $600 billion.
The CEOs around the table thanked Trump for hosting them and many of them also expressed thanks for his work on AI.
“Like Trump, business leaders are far more transactional than ideological. To be on the right side of a transaction with Trump, business leaders must accept his invitation,” said former Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.), a senior policy adviser at Nossaman LLP. “CEOs have a responsibility to protect their business equities. If they aren’t at the table, they may be on the menu.”
Thursday was Cook’s second visit to the White House in a month— he joined Trump in the Oval Office in early August to announce Apple’s latest $100 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing. Trump had threatened to hit Apple with 25 percent tariffs if it did not move its manufacturing to the U.S. but has since backed off.
Still, while Apple has long manufactured most of its products in China, it has been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs. Cook said he expected the company would face $1.1 billion in tariff-related costs next quarter, on top of $800 million from the previous three-month period.
Also Thursday, Trump asked Pichai, Google’s exec, about the win he had when a federal judge ruled Google could hold onto its Chrome browser on Tuesday. But, instead of discussing the court decision, Pichai turned to discuss AI, saying that the Trump administration’s action plan is “a great start.”
Google secured a much-needed victory on Tuesday in a legal battle over its monopoly on online search, but the judge did bar the company from entering exclusive agreements prioritizing its products and required it to share some data with competitors. The Justice Department had argued Google’s dominance over search could give it a leg up in the AI race.
Leaders with companies in that race were also at the event, which occurred hours after first lady Melania Trump hosted tech leaders at a White House roundtable. Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, Alexandr Wang, founder of Scale.ai and head of super intelligence at Meta, and Sunny Madra, president of Groq were at the dinner.
Still, some business leaders have struggled with the uncertainty of the Trump years.
“Several of my clients are simply trying to understand how to navigate in a political environment as fraught as this,” said Carney. “Many are impacted by tariffs, the [big, beautiful bill], and fears of another government shutdown. They are trying to play a game where the rules seem to be in constant flux.”
The senior Washington lobbyist said they counsel clients about what rhetoric to use when meeting with Trump, especially on his tariff plan.
“Do not go into the White House and tell them why the president’s policy is wrong and these are the facts and they need to be doing anything differently— that is not going to produce a successful outcome,” the source said. “What you need to be able to say is ‘we understand the president’s policies and we are supportive of what the president is trying to achieve here and if he approaches it in a slightly different way, he will be more successful.’”
Still, Trump has successfully been able to get CEOs to clamor to ingratiate themselves with him since he was elected back to the White House in November.
That’s largely seen in the way companies have made an about-face on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which many have shedded. Such initiatives had been championed by the Biden administration then largely cast aside once Trump took the White House.
The fetting by tech and business CEOs was apparent from Trump’s first day when the likes of Zuckerberg, Pichai and Altman attending Trump’s inauguration. Trump also hosted various leaders in Mar-a-Lago before he took office for his second term like Gates, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.
“President Trump’s resounding Election Day victory sent a clear message to the world: America is, once again, open for business,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said.
He added, “President Trump’s friendly relationship with CEOs and industry titans at home and abroad has been critical to securing trillions in investments for American manufacturing and technology, and business leaders know they have a friend and fellow businessman occupying the Oval Office.”
Trump, too, acknowledges the shift. After meeting with Cook in December, he said at a press conference the “biggest difference” between his first administration and his second “is that people want to get along with me this time.”
“The first one they were very hostile … and this one is very much less hostile,” he said.
