The tech CEOs who silence Americans for "misinformation" broke bread with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a White House state dinner Thursday night — because Beijing's market is worth more to them than your First Amendment rights.

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang, Lisa Su, Tim Cook — the oligarchy of American digital life all showed up to smile and sup with the leader of a country that censors a billion people. The Washington Post published the full guest list, which also included Wall Street titans Jamie Dimon, Larry Fink, Stephen Schwarzman, and David Solomon, plus defense contractors Lockheed Martin's Jim Taiclet and Boeing's Kelly Ortberg.

Follow the money and the dinner's real agenda writes itself. Musk's Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory produces roughly half the automaker's global deliveries, as Business Insider reported. Nvidia took a $4.5 billion charge and missed $2.5 billion in shipments after Washington imposed chip export restrictions on China in April 2025. Amazon, meanwhile, built a global warehousing and distribution network this year in three major Chinese shipping ports to funnel goods to the U.S. These companies need Beijing's good graces — and they were in the room to protect their access.

Trump seated Musk at the head table alongside himself, Xi, Nvidia's Huang, and Apple's Cook, according to Business Insider. The president toasted that "we've never gotten along better" and pledged to "build a relationship that promotes prosperity and security for future generations." He gifted Xi a bald eagle sculpture, saying it was an "embodiment of the free and soaring spirit of America," as the New York Post reported — a symbol of freedom handed to a dictator who runs concentration camps and disappears dissidents.

The irony deepened. Europe Says reported that Trump "made a joke about how the Chinese had the friendliest press corps" and noted that Chinese reporters ask Xi for permission to speak. That's not friendliness — it's totalitarianism. CNN and MSNBC White House reporters were denied access to Xi's arrival, the same outlet noted. Meanwhile, the New York Post reported that Pentagon officials were still working to retrieve F-35 fighter jet parts seized by the Chinese government in May — even as the CEO of Lockheed Martin, which builds the F-35, sat at dinner with the man whose government is holding them.

Also at the table: Jeff Yass, the billionaire backer of TikTok, the Chinese-owned app that has vacuumed up data on tens of millions of Americans. And Miriam Adelson, the Las Vegas Sands controlling shareholder who has poured millions into Republican politics. Three Supreme Court justices — Roberts, Barrett, and Kavanaugh — attended as well.

The AI stakes are enormous. Business Insider noted that Altman has backed shared safety standards with China, while Zuckerberg says labs can police themselves. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who has pushed for more cautious AI development, was "notably absent." The discussion topics included "pressing issues concerning security, technology, and super-intelligence," Trump said, per the Post. So the same companies that decide what Americans can say online are now negotiating the rules for artificial intelligence with a communist regime.

This is the bipartisan permanent class at work. Republican White House, tech donors, Wall Street financiers, defense contractors, and Chinese communist officials — all at one table, all with shared interests that don't include you.

The same platforms that will ban you for questioning election mechanics or COVID policy will fly across the country to toast a dictator who murders journalists and enslaves ethnic minorities. The question isn't why they went. The question is what they promised while they were there.