United States President Donald Trump hosted 31 top technology and artificial intelligence executives for a lunch meeting at the White House on Tuesday.
The gathering brought together leaders of competing tech giants whose combined personal fortunes far exceed 1 trillion dollars, according to news outlet Axios.
Trump sat at the center of the table, flanked by Nvidia head Jensen Huang to his right and Tesla chief Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, to his left.
Facebook parent Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg sat further to the right, while Google parent Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai occupied a seat on the left side of the table.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella were also present at the table, along with Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson.
White House Officials and Tech Executives in Attendance
Advanced Micro Devices chief executive Lisa Su and OpenAI president Greg Brockman also attended the high-level meeting.
Government officials in attendance included Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and White House adviser Michael Kratsios.
The White House photograph of the gathering echoed classical Last Supper imagery, showcasing tech leaders who set aside intense corporate rivalries for the afternoon. Nvidia manufactures microchips essential for artificial intelligence, while OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft develop leading AI language models and computing platforms.
Artificial Intelligence Regulation and Oversight
Addressing the executives on potential government restrictions, Trump stated that massive self-regulation must be the path forward for artificial intelligence development.
Trump rejected calls from lawmakers and industry critics for stricter oversight from Congress, advocating instead that technology companies regulate their own development of AI systems.
The debate over artificial intelligence governance has intensified as lawmakers in Washington consider legislation to address privacy, job displacement, and national security concerns surrounding rapidly expanding AI capabilities.
Data Center Expansion and Economic Claims
Turning to energy and infrastructure needs, Trump insisted that data center facilities will become very popular across the country. His assertion comes despite public opinion polls showing that a vast majority of Americans oppose building new data centers in their local communities.
Trump claimed that areas hosting data centers have become very rich, asserting that local residents have accumulated significant wealth. He added that local tax rates in those communities have decreased rather than increased and that many positive developments have occurred.
Data centers serve as the physical backbone of the digital economy, housing servers that process cloud computing workloads and power resource-intensive artificial intelligence models.
