President Donald Trump will travel to China this week to meet with Xi Jinping from May 13-15, the first state visit by a U.S. president in nearly a decade, according to Bloomberg. Trump will be bringing several business leaders from the worlds of finance and tech along for the trip, including people with major interests in the country, like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Tim Cook, who will soon be stepping aside from his role as CEO of Apple to work on government relations.
Musk, the world’s wealthiest person at $822 billion, has continued to be intimately involved in White House affairs even after a falling out with President Trump last year. Trump brought Musk back into the fold and has engaged with other world leaders, including a phone call in March with Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, according to the New York Times. The call reportedly centered on the war in Iran, and as the Times notes, it’s highly unusual for a private citizen to be engaged in a call like that.
Musk’s interests in China include his massive Tesla factory in Shanghai, which was first built in 2019 and expanded in 2025. Tim Cook’s interest in China relates to Apple’s presence in the country. Despite efforts to diversify some of its manufacturing into countries like Vietnam, the tech giant still produces a majority of its hardware in China.
Meta will also be present in China, though it’s unclear if Mark Zuckerberg will be in attendance. According to Bloomberg, Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick, who was previously Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy under President Trump, will be there.
The list of known people traveling to China with Trump, according to Bloomberg:
- Kelly Ortberg (Boeing)
- Dina Powell McCormick (Meta)
- Chuck Robbins (Cisco)
- Sanjay Mehrotra (Micron)
- Cristiano Amon (Qualcomm)
- David Solomon (Goldman Sachs)
- Stephen Schwarzman (Blackstone)
- Larry Fink (BlackRock)
- Jane Fraser (Citigroup)
- Larry Culp (General Electric)
- Brian Sikes (Cargill)
- Ryan McInerney (Visa)
- Michael Miebach (Mastercard)
- Jacob Thaysen (Illumina)
- Jim Anderson (Coherent)
So far, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is not on the guest list, which is notable given the company’s efforts to sell advanced AI chips to China. President Trump’s meeting with Xi will be important for U.S. businesses, but the elephant in the room will be America’s war on Iran.
The U.S. imposed new sanctions on several Chinese companies last week, alleging that they provided “satellite imagery to enable Iran’s military strikes against US forces in the Middle East” and helped Iran’s ballistic missile and drone program. China denies the allegations.
“We have always required Chinese enterprises to conduct business in accordance with laws and regulations, and will firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises,” government spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Monday during a press briefing, according to Reuters.
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