Washington– Prominent US executives, from big tech companies to agriculture, have been invited to join President Donald Trump on his trip to China this week, according to a White House official.
Trump leaves on Tuesday for Beijing to meet with President Xi Jinping. Besides Iran-related discussions, the two leaders are expected to discuss trade and artificial intelligence.
Here’s a look at some of the executives according to the White House official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, led Trump’s government efficiency department until its departure in spring 2025 before shuttering the controversial spin-off agency in November. The billionaire, who also owns the social media platform Musk ultimately said he regretted some of his posts on X about Trump.
President Donald Trump, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, shake hands after the US-China summit talks, on October 30, 2025.
AP Photo/Mark Schiffelbein, file
Since then, Musk has refocused his energy on Tesla and his other companies. Tesla has operations in China and Musk has visited. He has also been dealing with French prosecutors seeking to bring charges against him and X over images of child sexual abuse on the platform, deepfakes, disinformation, and complicity in the denial of crimes against humanity through the platform’s artificial intelligence system, Grok. There’s also a trial that pits Musk against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Cook is staying busy as his tenure at Apple comes to an end. The CEO announced last month that his 15-year reign as head of the tech company will end on September 1, when he hands over CEO duties to Apple’s head of hardware engineering, John Ternos. During Cook’s years as CEO, Apple saw its market value rise by more than $3.6 trillion during the iPhone-fueled boom. Cook will remain with the company as CEO.
Apple’s reliance on overseas manufacturing required Cook to master the art of political diplomacy, especially when Trump waged trade wars with China during his two terms in the White House. After convincing Trump to exempt the iPhone and other products from the tariffs imposed by Trump during his first term, he faced a more difficult challenge during the current administration.
While Trump insisted that Apple move iPhone manufacturing from China to the US, he imposed some tariffs on the device this time. But Cook still managed to reduce the tariffs by moving production of iPhones intended for the US market to India, as well as winning some exemptions after Apple promised to invest $600 billion in the US during the second Trump administration.
Robert “Kelly” Ortberg, former CEO of aerospace manufacturer Rockwell Collins, will become CEO of Boeing in 2024. He has spent time focusing on Boeing’s recovery, as the airline was dealing with legal, regulatory, production issues and mounting financial fallout when he took over.
A year ago, Ortberg said he did not expect the U.S. trade war with China to thwart Boeing’s financial recovery, nor prevent it from reaching aircraft delivery targets with Chinese airlines that were refusing to accept its planes. Beijing raised the import tax on US goods to 125% in April 2025 in response to Trump raising the tariff on products made in China to 145%. China’s tariffs would double the cost of passenger aircraft sold by Boeing, the largest US exporter, by tens of millions of dollars. But Beijing is less of a threat to Boeing now than it was before, as it has begun sending fewer of its finished planes there over time. Boeing is in ongoing talks with China about the possible sale of large aircraft.
– Chairman and CEO of BlackRock Larry Fink
– Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of Blackstone Stephen Schwarzman
– Cargill Chairman and CEO Brian Sykes
-City Chairman and CEO Jane Fraser
– Cohesive CEO Jim Anderson
– GE Aerospace Chairman and CEO H. Lawrence Culp
– Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon
-Illumina CEO Jacob Thyssen
– MasterCard CEO Michael Maybach
– Meta President and Vice Chairman Dina Powell McCormick
– Micron Chairman, President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra
– President and CEO of Qualcomm Cristiano Amon
– Visa CEO Ryan McInerney
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Aamer Madani in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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