Inside Trump’s billionaire entourage joining president on key China trip – The Independent
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President Trump said on Truth Social that he will ask President Xi Jinping to ‘open up’ China
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President Donald Trump is being accompanied on his key trip to China by an entourage of the super-rich, boasting a combined net worth in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
The list of tech and financial industry titans joining the commander-in-chief during his summit with China’s President Xi Jinping includes Elon Musk, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Musk posted from Air Force One on Wednesday that he was on his way to Beijing, and was pictured greeting dignitaries on the red carpet when the plane landed that evening.
Trump earlier confirmed a number of high-profile attendees in a lengthy post on Truth Social, albeit referring to Cook as “Tim Apple” in the process.
“It is an Honor to have Jensen, Elon, Tim Apple, Larry Fink, Stephen Schwarzmann [sic], Kelly Ortberg (Boeing), Brian Sikes (Cargill), Jane Fraser (Citi), Larry Culp (GE Aerospace), David Solomon (Goldman Sachs), Sanjay Mehrotra (Micron), Cristiano Amon (Qualcomm), and many others journeying to the Great Country of China where I will be asking President Xi, a Leader of extraordinary distinction, to “open up” China so that these brilliant people can work their magic, and help bring the People’s Republic to an even higher level!” Trump wrote.
“In fact, I promise, that when we are together, which will be in a matter of hours, I will make that my very first request. I have never seen or heard of any idea that would be more beneficial to our incredible Countries.”
According to Forbes, the group has a combined net worth of $870 billion, excluding Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, who was originally not thought to be attending.
Including Huang’s net worth, which the magazine estimates to be $190.6 billion, the combined number soars to over $1.06 trillion.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla, who infamously feuded with Trump after leaving his administration, alone has an estimated net worth of around $819 billion, according to Forbes.
Cook, who recently announced that he planned to step down as the CEO of Apple, has a net worth of $2.9 billion.
Huang, whose company is a key player in the global A.I. race, was welcomed onto Air Force One late on Tuesday.
After seeing reports that Huang was not coming, Trump reportedly called him on Tuesday morning and extended an invitation, a person familiar with the conversation told The New York Times.
Executives from Boeing, Cargill, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Mastercard, Meta and Visa are also joining the trip.
Outside the world of tech and finance, the Hollywood director Brett Ratner was also spotted by reporters on board Air Force One as Trump jetted off to China on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Rush Hour filmmaker told The Washington Post that Ratner will use the opportunity to scout for locations for the fourth movie in the series.
The companies represented by Trump’s group are reportedly as follows:
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