At a dinner hosted by US President Donald Trump, technology industry executives including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook emphasized their respective commitments to increasing investments in America, highlighting the strengthened relationship between Trump and Silicon Valley.
In his opening remarks, Trump addressed a major concern for technology companies: ensuring sufficient energy to meet the growing electricity demands of data centers driving the artificial intelligence boom.
"We have provided you with very favorable conditions in terms of power capacity, access to electricity, and permits," Trump said in the White House State Dining Room.
The Thursday evening dinner in Washington brought together executives and founders from some of the world's most valuable technology companies in a rare gathering. Attendees also included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and co-founder Sergey Brin, as well as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and co-founder Bill Gates. These companies are all competing for dominance in the emerging artificial intelligence sector.
Trump invited each executive to discuss their respective plans, with the leaders taking turns emphasizing their expansion efforts in the United States and expressing gratitude for government policies they believe will help advance artificial intelligence development. Trump first called on Zuckerberg to speak.
Zuckerberg told Trump, "All the companies here are building and making massive investments in America to construct data centers and infrastructure to power the next wave of innovation." When Trump pressed Zuckerberg about his company's investment amount, the latter stated they would invest "at least $600 billion" by the end of 2028.
"That's quite a lot," Trump responded. In recent days, he has heavily promoted Meta's large data center construction in Louisiana, with an estimated cost of $50 billion.
To increase US investment and ensure America's dominance in cutting-edge technology, Trump has attracted technology executives to his camp through an agenda of reducing corporate tax burdens and regulatory constraints. The rapidly developing artificial intelligence sector has been a key focus.
Trump's White House AI director, Silicon Valley venture capitalist David Sacks, promoted a comprehensive action plan from the US government in July, calling for AI deregulation, enhanced research and development, and increased domestic energy production to power energy-intensive data centers—all measures aimed at ensuring America maintains its competitive advantage.
Trump has secured billions of dollars in corporate commitments to advance artificial intelligence infrastructure construction. On Thursday, the White House praised Hitachi Energy's announced plan to invest over $1 billion in power grid infrastructure to meet AI's growing electricity demands.
More broadly, major corporations have announced plans to increase US investments to avoid tariffs Trump has imposed on imported products to stimulate domestic production of critical goods. Trump has indicated that some companies committing to US production may receive partial tariff relief.
Apple CEO Cook joined technology leaders for dinner at the White House State Dining Room on Thursday.
Cook thanked Trump for "setting the tone that enables us to make significant investments." Apple committed last month to an additional $100 billion investment in US domestic manufacturing, bringing total committed investments to $600 billion.
Trump stated that Cook's investment commitment will help Apple avoid planned US government tariffs on semiconductor imports. "Tim Cook will be in very good shape," Trump said.
Trump's relationship with Silicon Valley has rapidly warmed since his inauguration in January, when Zuckerberg, Cook, and Pichai—who donated millions to the inauguration—were seated in prominent positions. With next year's midterm elections determining congressional control, Trump and his allies will be eager to leverage these resources again.