Trump-Xi state dinner guest list: Tech leaders in focus

President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to hold a high-stakes summit on September 24.

At the same date, President Trump and Melenia will host Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, for the state dinner in the White House’s East Room which is expected to be attended by high-profile tech leaders. According to the reports, the guest list includes Elon Musk, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

As per some US officials, the duo will be joined by other moguls from the tech industry. The attendees will be Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sunder Pichai and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

The highly-anticipated Trump-Xi summit has come at a critical juncture when the world is in the grip of a state of panic driven by AI existential risk to humanity as the researchers warned that the rapidly evolving technology can wipe out humans within a decade.

Hence, it is expected that the meeting and talks will be focused on discussing AI safety. Even the top tech leaders who will join the dinner called for slowing down AI development. Initially, the push came from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei who wrote in his lengthy essay about what could possibly go wrong if the industry did not rein frontier AI pace.

To manage the AI safety issue collaboratively, an OpenAI spokesperson announced that Altman will brief the UN Security Council on AI next week, where he is expected to push for greater global coordination in artificial intelligence development.

But when it comes to President Trump, he dismissed AI fears by calling them a “hoax” and a sick conspiracy meant to stifle America’s pace in artificial intelligence from which China can be benefitted. China also criticised these slowing down calls as a fearmongering tactic.

Prior to the Trump-Xi meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will discuss AI safety on September 20 during a meeting in New York. Xi’s summit in Washington with Trump will be the Chinese leader’s first visit to the US in nearly three years.