Trump hosts Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, tech executives for AI push at White House dinner

President Donald Trump hosted a White House dinner Sept. 4 with leading tech executives, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in support of First Lady Melania Trump’s artificial intelligence initiative. 

Other attendees included Apple CEO Tim Cook, OpenAI's Sam Altman, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on X that he was invited but could not attend.

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At the dinner, Gates praised US innovation and said his focus remains on “health, in areas like vaccines or gene editing.” He added that he and Trump have discussed “taking American innovation to the next level to cure — and even eradicate — some of these diseases.”

Gates said Trump “mentioned polio, which is one that we’re close on. We don’t need new science there. But for others, like HIV and sickle cell, we do need new science.”

Referencing Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, the 2020 program that accelerated the COVID vaccine rollout, Gates said, “The US has the seeds that — in the same way that Warp Speed took those seeds and put them together — I think something fantastic can be done.”

“The work being done by the people at this table,” Gates continued, “is changing the world.”

Gates’ presence at the dinner sparked backlash from several conservatives, including Robby Starbuck, who denounced it as “infuriating to see Bill Gates at the White House in a position of honor.”

“I want a future where we stop giving power to evil people like Gates,” Starbuck wrote. “He's a globalist who hates the America First ideology. His God complex deserves nothing but contempt.”

In a followup post, he said Gates “wants everyone to eat fake meat, get triple boosted, eat GMO foods, let him release his genetically engineered bugs onto unsuspecting populations and block out the sun with geo-engineering for climate change. Oh and he wants our country flooded with migrants.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said she would never “eat Bill Gates fake meat, bugs, take the never ending vaccines, or gene editing.”

Media personality Mike Cernovich added, “There is no reason for Bill Gates to be in the White House.”

By contrast, the White House described the event in a Sept. 5 statement as an “extraordinary gathering of technology industry leaders” aimed at advancing artificial intelligence and strengthening America’s global leadership in innovation.

During the dinner, Trump said the “most brilliant people are gathered around this table,” and several leaders pledged major investments into US infrastructure.

Cook thanked Trump for “setting the tone such that we could make a major investment in the United States,” and Zuckerberg, who was seated next to Trump at the dinner, announced Meta would invest at least $600 billion through 2028.