Nearly three dozen high-profile and extremely wealthy technology, finance and other business executives attended President Donald Trump’s state dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House on Sept. 24.
How wealthy? Forbes estimates the combined net worth of the technology moguls at more than $2.4 trillion. That’s almost the gross domestic product of Canada in 2026.
How many? Our review of the White House guest list shows:
- 134 state dinner guests.
- 35 business figures among them, or 26% of all guests.
- 21 are billionaires, according to Forbes.
- 14 others are wealthy business leaders, though Forbes either puts their net worth at less than $1 billion or does not publicly estimate them.
Trump and Xi were expected to discuss tariffs, trade, Taiwan and AI during Xi’s three-day visit. But it was the billionaires at nearby dinner tables who drew public attention.
They included Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX; Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon; and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, to mention a few.
USA TODAY analyzed and compared the reported net worth of Trump’s dinner companions. Here is what we found.
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The state dinner guest list echoes Trump's inaugural dinner in 2025, where some of the billionaires were seated closer to the incoming president than his incoming cabinet, USA TODAY reported. And while these are some of the richest people in the world, the corporations they represent are worth far more.
Of the 35 business people, about 15 of them, or 43%, are connected to technology. The other 20 are spread across other industries, including 11 in finance, three in aerospace and defense, and others in automotive, energy, pharmaceuticals and media.
A breakdown of the technology leaders by their companies' primary industry sector:
- AI: Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI | Greg Brockman, president, OpenAI
- Communications software: Eric Yuan, CEO, Zoom
- Computer hardware: Michael Dell, chairman and CEO, Dell Technologies
- Consumer electronics: Tim Cook, executive chairman, Apple
- E-commerce and cloud computing: Jeff Bezos, executive chairman, Amazon
- Electric vehicles and aerospace: Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla and SpaceX
- Enterprise software and cloud computing: Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft
- Internet services and digital platforms: Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Meta Platforms | Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet/Google | Sergey Brin, cofounder, Alphabet
- Semiconductors: Jensen Huang, president and CEO, Nvidia | Cristiano Amon, president and CEO, Qualcomm | Lisa Su, chair, president and CEO, AMD | Sanjay Mehrotra, chair and CEO, Micron Technology
Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Jane Fraser of Citigroup, and David Solomon and John F.W. Rogers of Goldman Sachs are among those in finance. Kelly Ortberg of Boeing, Jim Taiclet of Lockheed Martin and Larry Culp of GE Aerospace are in aerospace and defense. Albert Bourla of Pfizer is in pharmaceuticals.
Contributing: Shawn Sullivan
Source: USA TODAY Network reporting and research; Reuters; Forbes; Bloomberg Billionaires Index; International Monetary Fund
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Just how many billionaires were at state dinner with Trump and Xi?
