The tech billionaires who built their empires censoring American voices and deplatforming conservatives will break bread with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping at a White House state dinner next week — and the establishment press is celebrating it as a social triumph.
This is the merger of corporate power and communist tyranny in one gilded room. The same executives who lecture Americans about misinformation and silence dissent are lining up for a seat with the leader of a regime that runs concentration camps, crushes free speech, and steals American intellectual property. Their companies stand to make or lose billions depending on U.S.-China policy, and they intend to be in the room where it gets shaped.
According to the New York Post, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, SpaceX and Tesla's Elon Musk, and OpenAI's Sam Altman are on the guest list for the Sept. 24 dinner. NVIDIA's Jensen Huang, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Dell founder Michael Dell, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, and former Apple CEO Tim Cook also secured seats.
The Post framed the whole affair as glamorous Washington spectacle, quoting a senior administration official who called it "the hottest ticket in town" and added that "China is the biggest of them all, and they all want a place at the table." That framing — treating access to a communist dictator as a status symbol — tells you where corporate America's loyalties sit.
CNBC, for its part, ignored the Xi dinner entirely in its coverage of Musk's AI maneuvering, focusing instead on his shifting alliances with rivals and his regulatory positioning. But CNBC did report that Musk has joined Huang and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg in advising President Trump to oppose an industry-funded AI regulator. These men aren't just dining with Xi — they're shaping policy behind the scenes to shield their own empires from oversight.
Follow the money. CNBC noted that Trump's own stock portfolio includes shares of NVIDIA and SpaceX according to his most recent disclosure. The president has a personal financial stake in the very companies currying favor with Beijing. Trump also publicly called fears of runaway AI a "hoax," directly contradicting Musk and Altman's calls to slow development. When the president, the tech oligarchs, and the Chinese dictator all have a seat at the same table, the American people are the ones not in the room.
Musk, Huang, Cook, and Fraser previously joined Trump in Beijing at Xi's lavish banquet at the Great Hall of the People, the Post reported. This is a revolving relationship — not a one-time event.
The state visit comes amid what even the Post acknowledges are "high tensions" between Washington and Beijing as both nations battle for AI dominance. Some Chinese business executives will attend as part of Xi's delegation, and the Post notes the dinner gives both sides a chance for "informal diplomacy" — Washington-speak for backroom dealing outside public scrutiny.
Ambassador Monica Crowley, chief of protocol, told the Post the president and first lady "look forward to welcoming President Xi" and that the grandeur "reflects the importance of our bilateral relationship."
The same tech oligarchs who decide what Americans are allowed to say online are now wining and dining the dictator who runs the Great Firewall. The only question is who's influencing whom — and who's left paying the bill.
