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- Trump's Tech Dinner & AI Spend
In today’s edition
Trump gathers tech leaders for dinner at the White House
Thoughts on the attendees, and announcements made
Delusion
On Thursday, Donald Trump hosted a tech dinner for 33 top industry leaders.
Pretty crazy to see these powerhouses, captains of their own ecosystems, shoulder-to-shoulder at a dinner table.
Sundar Pichai (Google CEO), Sergey Brin (Google Co-Founder), Laurene Powell Jobs (Emerson Collective), Tim Cook (Apple CEO), Sam Altman (OpenAI CEO), Brian Chesky (Airbnb Co-Founder)
In today’s short edition, we’ll have a look at everyone who attended.
With over $2 trillion in infrastructure spend committed, there were some incredibly notable moments. Not to mention, the absence of Elon, Jensen, and Bezos…
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Here’s who we saw at the dinner:
Name | Position | Background | Notable Moments |
|---|---|---|---|
Donald Trump | President | Assembled all 33 attendees in the Roosevelt room | Called attendees 'the most brilliant people' and 'high IQ group' |
Melania Trump | First Lady/AI Education Task Force Chair | Chairs AI Education Task Force | Sat next to Bill Gates. Earlier launched Presidential AI Challenge for K-12 students. Very pro AI in schools |
Susie Wiles | White House Chief of Staff | First woman to hold position, 68-year-old veteran political strategist | Managed Trump's 2024 campaign |
Mark Zuckerberg | Meta CEO and Founder | Social media giant founder and known for his scorched-Earth approach to infra + hiring when lagging behind competitors | Sat next to Trump. Pledged $600B through 2028. Very notable quotes listed below. |
Sundar Pichai | Alphabet and Google CEO | Leads world's largest search company (+AI model creator, TPU chipmaker, cloud behemoth in GCP) | $250B investment over 2 years + $1B for education. Trump referenced Google's antitrust victory. Pichai: 'I'm glad it's over' |
Sergey Brin | Google Co-founder | $191B net worth, emigrated from Moscow at age 6 | Trump praised his 'wonderful MAGA girlfriend'. Commended Trump for 'applying pressure' in Venezuela |
Gerelyn Gilbert-Soto | GG Health Coach Founder/Brin's girlfriend | Founder of health coaching company | Appeared 'starstruck' when Trump asked her to speak |
Bill Gates | Microsoft Co-founder and Philanthropist | Tech pioneer focused on global health | Sat next to Melania Trump. Discussed vaccines and global health. Wants to collaborate on curing HIV, polio, sickle cell anemia |
Satya Nadella | Microsoft CEO | Currently leading a massive cloud computing transformation | $75-80B annual investment commitment. Thanked Trump for policies helping US lead in technology |
Tim Cook | Apple CEO | Leads world's most valuable company | $600B investment over 4 years. Notable quotes referenced below. |
Sam Altman | OpenAI CEO | Founder of the $500B models + consumer subscriptions company spending enormously on infrastructure via cloud and chip behemoths (Azure, Nvidia) | Quoted below; thanked Trump for supporting $500B Stargate Project |
Greg Brockman | OpenAI President and Co-founder | 37-year-old who briefly left OpenAI during 2023 crisis | His GPT-4 unveiling was key moment in AI development |
Anna Brockman | Greg Brockman's wife | Became notable during OpenAI's 2023 crisis | Reportedly pleaded with board members to reverse Altman's ouster |
Safra Catz | Oracle CEO | 63-year-old, one of highest-paid female CEOs, Israeli-born | Has overseen Oracle's cloud computing transformation |
Gal Tirosh | Safra Catz's husband | Israeli-born former soccer coach | Maintains low public profile |
Lisa Su | AMD CEO | 55-year-old leading AMD's AI and data center focus | Praised 'remarkable acceleration' and 'incredible acceleration' in semiconductors under Trump |
Sanjay Mehrotra | Micron Technology CEO | 67-year-old Indian-born, co-founded SanDisk in 1988 | Holds over 70 patents, serves on Stanford Health Care board |
Alexandr Wang | Former Scale AI CEO, now Meta Chief AI Officer | 28-year-old, world's youngest self-made billionaire at 24 | Meta acquired 49% stake in Scale AI for $14.3B. Holds 70+ patents |
Shyam Sankar | Palantir CTO | 44-year-old Mumbai-born, employee #13 at Palantir in 2006 | Pioneered Palantir's 'forward deployed engineer' model. Recognized as top 7 in defense tech |
David Limp | Blue Origin CEO | 58-year-old, spent 13+ years at Amazon overseeing Alexa, Echo, Kindle | Joined Blue Origin in December 2023 to focus on manufacturing at scale |
Jared Isaacman | Shift4 Payments CEO and Commercial Astronaut | 42-year-old billionaire, high school dropout | Commanded SpaceX's Inspiration4, performed first commercial spacewalk. Briefly nominated for NASA administrator |
David Sacks | White House AI and Crypto Czar | Chairman of President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology | All In Podcast host, responsible for much of this administration’s pro-crypto pro-AI initiatives |
Chamath Palihapitiya | Social Capital Founder, All-In Podcast host | Billionaire investor, longtime democrat-turned vocal Trump supporter | Provided behind-the-scenes insights on All-In podcast about dinner dynamics |
John Hering | Lookout Co-founder and Vy Capital Partner | 42-year-old USC dropout, cybersecurity expert | Protects over 175 million devices through Lookout |
Vivek Ranadivé | TIBCO Software Chairman and Sacramento Kings Owner | 67-year-old Indian-American, nicknamed 'Mr. Real Time' | First Indian majority owner of NBA team. $700M net worth |
Dylan Field | Figma CEO and Co-founder | 33-year-old Thiel Fellowship recipient, Brown University dropout | Built Figma into $68B company, worth approximately $6.6B |
Jamie Siminoff | Ring Founder | 48-year-old who created world's first Wi-Fi video doorbell in garage | Amazon acquired Ring for over $1B in 2018. Now Amazon VP overseeing Ring and smart-home |
Mark Pincus | Zynga Founder | Created FarmVille and other popular mobile games | Active advisor to startups and VC firms |
Jason Chang | CSBio CEO | 42-year-old with economics degree from UC San Diego, biochemistry master's from Oxford | Company focuses on custom peptides and automated peptide synthesizers |
Nathalie Dompé | Dompé Farmaceutici Co-CEO | 35-year-old Milan-born, married to Chamath Palihapitiya | Former model for Vogue and Giorgio Armani, now pharmaceutical executive |
Meredith O'Rourke | Trump National Finance Director | Longtime Republican fundraiser from Tallahassee | Founded O'Rourke Group in 1997, organized GOP fundraising for nearly 30 years |
Tony Fabrizio | Republican Strategist and Trump Pollster | 65-year-old chief pollster on five presidential campaigns | Won AAPC Pollster of the Year award for 2016 Trump campaign |
Sunny Madra | Groq COO and President | Serial entrepreneur with multiple successful exits | Active angel investor in SpaceX, Notion, Uber, Epic Games |
And here are the quotes and moments I found most notable. Take my inserted editorial with a grain of salt…
Donald Trump
'The most brilliant people are gathered around this table... This is definitely a high-IQ group, and I'm very proud of them. They're leading a revolution in business and in genius.'
'We're making it very easy for you in terms of electric capacity and getting it for you, getting your permits. We are leading China by a lot, by a really, by a great amount.'
'This is taking our country to a new level. We're leading the world. We're leading it because of the people around the table.'
'You had a very good day yesterday. Do you want to talk about that day you had yesterday?' (to Sundar Pichai about Google's antitrust ruling)
'I'd say Tim Cook would be in pretty good shape' (regarding semiconductor tariffs)
Mark Zuckerberg
'All the companies here are building huge investments in the country to build out data centers and infrastructure to power the next wave of innovation'
'We don't often get together as the CEOs of the different companies but it's good to'
Sam Altman
'Thank you for being such a pro-business, pro-innovation president. It's a very refreshing change. We're very excited to see what you're doing to make all of our companies and our entire country so successful.'
'I think it's going to set us up for a long period of leading the world, and that wouldn't be happening without your leadership'
Tim Cook
'Thank you for setting the tone such that we could make a major investment in the United States and have some key manufacturing, advanced manufacturing here'
'That says a lot about your focus and your leadership and your focus on innovation'
Sundar Pichai
'This is one of the most transformative moments any of us has ever seen. AI is going to change everything... the fact that you are our president and you recognize this right away and you've unleashed American innovation and creativity'
'Your administration is investing a lot already. The AI action plan under your leadership, I think, is a great start and we look forward to working together'
'I'm glad it's over... Appreciate that your administration had a constructive dialogue, and we were able to get it to some resolution' (about Google's antitrust case)
Satya Nadella
'Thank you so much for bringing us all together, and the policies that you have put in place... you and your policies are really helping a lot'
'Thank you for incredible leadership including getting this group together'
Bill Gates
'Thank you for setting the tone such that we could make a major investment in the United States and have some key manufacturing, advanced manufacturing here'
Discussed wanting to collaborate with Trump on taking 'American innovation to the next level' to cure diseases like HIV, polio, and sickle cell anemia
Sergey Brin
'You're applying a lot of pressure to Maduro and I think that is phenomenal' (referring to Trump's Venezuela policy)
Commended Trump for 'applying pressure' in Venezuela, calling it important work
Safra Catz (Oracle CEO)
'This is a most incredible time. AI is going to change everything... the fact that you are our president and you recognize this right away and you've unleashed American innovation and creativity'
Lisa Su (AMD CEO)
Praised the 'remarkable acceleration' and 'incredible acceleration' in semiconductors under Trump
Gerelyn Gilbert-Soto (Sergey Brin's girlfriend)
'Trump, every time I'm here, your presence, I'm so... It's like, I can't believe it' (appeared 'starstruck’ when Trump asked her to speak)
First Lady Melania Trump
'The robots are here. Our future is no longer science fiction'
'As leaders and parents, we must manage AI's growth responsibly. During this primitive stage, it is our duty to treat AI as we would our own children—empowering but with watchful guidance'
'I predict AI will represent the single largest growth category in our nation during this administration'
'We are living in a moment of wonder, and it is our duty to prepare America's children'
In an episode of the All In Podcast following this event, Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sacks (both in the table above) characterized this event as highly pragmatic and indicative of Trump’s perspective on American innovation.
It’s something of a facetious thought experiment: what would happen if we took the most prolific decisionmakers in American technology—the backbone of the world’s greatest economy—and put them in a room with not only each other, but the President?
That’s what happened on Thursday.
Supposedly, the event was filled with CEOs discussing problems they’re facing, followed by Trump’s assurances of alleviation.
I’m sure it was a give and take: attendees vie for Trump’s adoration in hopes of favorable treatment and representation. In exchange, they make massive spending commitments to align with Trump’s rhetoric and bolster the economy he’s responsible for.
The culmination of this event was undoubtedly the commitments made by big tech CEOs to invest in AI infrastructure. Most notably, and most unsurprisingly, Meta’s.
Investment Commitments Announced:
Meta: $600 billion through 2028
Apple: $600 billion over four years
Google: $250 billion over two years + $1 billion for education
Microsoft: $75-80 billion annually
Zuck’s announcement was followed by a funny moment, as he was clearly caught off guard by the president.
Sitting right beside Trump, likely in preparation for this announcement, Zuckerberg was heard on a hot mic telling him: “I'm sorry I wasn’t ready... I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with”
Which number you wanted to go with?? 😂 If he’d accidentally gone with $700B (whoops!) is that another hundred billion dollars of capex?
What a time to be alive. 😮💨
Very soon, I’ll publish a much deeper edition on the state of AI infrastructure spending, and reflect on my theses from the last couple of years.
If you’re interested in the topic, I’d highly encourage you to read the above posts in order (they’re part 1 and 2 respectively). They culminate in this thesis:
Be optimistic about the future of compute, but expect a long-term ROI timespan.
Look globally (Middle East, etc.) for exponentially growing spending habits and fill their demand using preferable foreign energy dynamics.
Capitalize on AI infra doomer sentiment slashing valuations in the short to medium term.
Retain conviction in unfathomable value accruing at the infrastructure layer, by which the future of the world is enabled.
Our money printer has been clocking in overtime hours since 2020.
We’re so far from fiscal responsibility that I can’t see a meaningful course correction without devastating our economy, and worse, forgoing multi-century geopolitical dependence via currency reservation.
And yet, I am so delusionally bullish on AI infrastructure that I believe it’s our only ticket out of this mess.
So… let the trillions flow.
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