Trump Hosts Xi State Dinner With Tech Industry Titans — SkimNews
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- Trump hosted a White House state dinner for Xi Jinping on Thursday (Sep 24) with Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Google's Sundar Pichai, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and Dell's Michael Dell on the guest list.
- The menu begins with yellow squash velouté with wild mushrooms, features sesame-crusted sea bass with braised baby bok choy and roasted garden eggplant, and ends with vanilla crémeux with sour cherry confit and walnut frangipane plus ice cream with White House honey.
- At the dinner, Xi said China and the US must "explore a new approach for major countries to get along well with each other" and must "act as responsible major powers."
- Trump broke protocol by personally greeting Xi and his wife at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday—presidents typically wait for guests at the White House—rolling out a 30-meter red carpet, a 21-person honour guard, two B-1 bombers flyover, and two American children with bouquets.
- Melania Trump's office said the first lady helped with dinner preparations, while guests' fashion, seating, and body language were closely watched for signals about US-China relations.
- Trump has nicknamed his under-construction White House ballroom the "Great Hall of the United States" to rival Beijing's Great Hall of the People, where Xi hosted him in May beneath grand chandeliers.
Why it matters: Trump invested in dramatic pageantry—from a B-1 bomber flyover to publicly renaming his new ballroom—ahead of closed-door trade and AI talks with Xi, with stakes made visible by a guest list packed with the very CEOs whose companies sit at the heart of the US-China tech rivalry.
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