Tech
President Trump hosts tech executives and their guests to a dinner at the White House in the Oval Office.
(Photo: The White House)

Here are the Trump ties among the tech leaders who had dinner at the White House

Many of the attendees have donated to, vocally supported, or even worked for the president.

Jon Keegan
8h

If an asteroid had hit the White House last Thursday night, the American tech industry would have practically vaporized. The glitzy dinner of “tech leaders” at the White House was a star-studded event, and an extremely high concentration of high-net-worth individuals.

But not everyone got an invitation, and there were several notable absences at the table, like former “First Buddy” Elon Musk, who says he got invited but couldn’t attend. And Jensen Huang, the leader of Nvidia — the world’s most valuable company — was nowhere to be found.

After cataloging the identities of all of the dinner guests, we decided to dig a little deeper into what each guest might have done to get one of the exclusive invitations.

Sundar Pichai, Sergey Brin, Tim Cook and Sam Altman at the White House.
Sundar Pichai, Sergey Brin, Tim Cook and Sam Altman at the White House. (Photo: The White House)

A few of the guests were part of Trump’s administration, such as venture capitalist and podcaster turned AI and crypto czar David Sacks, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Others were in the orbit of Trump’s presidential campaign and fundraising team, such as former campaign finance director Meredith O’Rourke, and Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio.

All of the guests who got a chance to speak were heaping praise on President Trump’s leadership on AI, but Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates used his brief comments to note his philanthropic work supporting vaccines and eliminating disease.

Here’s a breakdown of the attendees, and why they may have made the cut. (See our compilation of the full list of attendees here.)

  • 💰Chamath Palihapitiya - Social Capital CEO helped raise millions for Trump 2024 campaign.

  • 🕶️ Mark Zuckerberg - Meta CEO. Meta donated $1 million to Trump inauguration. Trump once threatened Zuckerberg would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he interfered in election.

  • 🇺🇸 Safra Catz - Oracle CEO Served on 2016 Trump transition team.

  • 🚀 David Limp - Blue Origin CEO. Blue Origin reached out to Trump to take advantage of Musk spat and position the rocket company as a viable SpaceX alternative.

  • 🇺🇸 Mark Pincus - Zynga co-founder. Announced his vote for Trump in 2024, citing Trump’s support for Israel. Donated $97,519 to Trump inauguration.

  • 💰John Hering - Lookout co-founder. Donated $1 million to Trump inauguration.

  • 💰Lisa Su -Advanced Micro Devices CEO. Agreed to pay 15% cut on all MI308 AI chips to Trump administration in exchange for lifting ban. Nvida cut a similar deal for its H20 chips.

  • 👁️ Shyam Sankar - Palantir CTO. Palantir was picked by Trump administration to help amass data on Americans, across government agencies.

  • 💰Sergey Brin - Google co-founder. Google donated $1 million to Trump inauguration.

  • 🏆 Tim Cook - Apple CEO. Personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, pledged $600 billion investment in US manufacturing, gifted Trump golden bauble in Oval Office.

  • 💰Sam Altman - OpenAI CEO. Personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, announced $500 billion Stargate project at White House in January 2025.

  • 🇺🇸 Sanjay Mehrotra- Micron CEO. Pledged a $200 billion “onshoring” of advanced memory chips.

  • 💰Satya Nadella - Microsoft CEO. Microsoft donated $1 million to Trump inauguration.

  • 💰 Sundar Pichai - Google CEO. Google donated $1 million to Trump inauguration.

  • 🚀Jared Isaacman - Shift4 CEO. Was nominated by Trump to head NASA, but was withdrawn during his spat with Isaacman’s ally Musk. Donated $2 million to Trump inauguration.

Sources: OpenSecrets, Sherwood research.

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