When the BBC entered the dining hall for the state dinner, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was standing by a table, apparently sharing an amusing story that drew laughter from two nearby guests.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth sat at another table, maintaining a serious expression. He was accompanied by his wife, with Jared Kushner and White House Chief of Staff Monica Crowley nearby.
The White House extended invitations to a broad array of officials, conservative broadcasters, technology leaders, social‑media executives and other corporate figures.
Among the attendees were members of Trump’s cabinet and family members, including his children Ivanka, Eric and Tiffany.
Technology industry leaders present comprised Apple’s Tim Cook, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.
Cook and Huang were seated at the same table as President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Elon Musk, who previously served in a Trump administration role overseeing government‑size reductions, also joined that table.
Additional corporate representatives included executives from General Motors, Visa, Paramount Skydance, ExxonMobil and other firms.
Social‑media magnate Mark Zuckerberg attended, as did Jeff Yaas, an American billionaire who holds a stake in TikTok.
“Everybody wanted to be there,” Trump remarked beforehand. “You have the entire tech world, the entire banking world, and a lot more.”
One notable absence was Anthropic, one of the world’s largest and most valuable artificial‑intelligence companies. The BBC has contacted Anthropic to inquire whether it was invited or chose not to attend.
