Trump Summons Tech Execs to Dinner: Let’s Go Over Seating Chart

Katie Notopoulos: Let’s talk about the seating arrangements of the Trump dinner with tech CEOs. The photos are causing me intense thirdhand discomfort.

The first thing that jumps out is who is seated closest to President Trump: Mark Zuckerberg on one side, then “crypto czar” David Sacks. On the other side of Melania Trump is Bill Gates. What does it all mean?

Peter Kafka: My operating theory for all of the seating decisions is that the people closest to Trump are both 1) the most powerful people in tech, but also 2) people Trump recognizes. Like, I’m pretty sure he couldn’t pick Alexandr Wang of Scale AI (now Meta) or Mark Pincus of Zynga out of any lineups. So to the end of the table they go!

Katie: That sounds about right. Technically, Bill Gates isn’t even a tech CEO anymore; he’s retired! The same (sort of) is true for Sergey Brin, who had a prime seat right across from Trump, next to Tim Cook. But Satya Nadella, the actual CEO of Microsoft, who is less recognizable than Gates, was way off at the end of the table.

Peter: Sergey, as you may recall, told Google employees in 2016 that he found Trump’s election victory “deeply offensive.” But who cares about the past! Donald Trump looks forward, not backward (except when he’s not).

Katie: They’ve all come around, right? To varying degrees? Trump wanted to throw Zuck in jail, and now he’s seated at his right hand! (On a side note, I expect to see this Getty photo of Zuck and Trump as the art for a lot of articles in the future!)

Peter: Zuck is Trump’s new BFF (say people who would like us to believe that). But sitting next to Donald Trump is a double-edged sword: If you’re at the edge of the table, he’s not going to bother you, but if you’re in the front of the class, you have to be prepared for a pop quiz.

Which Zuck apparently was not. The WSJ noted: “Zuckerberg, who seemed startled by a question directed at him, responded that he hadn’t been listening.” Which, honestly, is the most relatable thing about Mark Zuckerberg I’ve ever heard.

Katie: What did you think of Tim Cook and Sam Altman sitting next to each other?

Peter: Game recognize game, is what I think. Tim Cook was the master Trump tech-whisperer in the first go-round, and remains top of his game.

But Altman went from a guy who blogged about how terrible Trump was the first time around to a guy who managed to wedge his way into an AI deal that Elon Musk wanted — while Musk was still Shadow President.

Katie: Speaking of Musk — he wasn’t there, but it’s pretty easy to guess why (he and Trump are on the outs at the moment). But more notably absent was Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, who has also seemed to emerge as something of a Trump Whisperer. Lisa Su of AMD was there. Perhaps he was just busy?

Peter: Particularly interesting because Jensen made a point of being seen by Trump at other Big Tech goat rodeos. “I see my friend is here, Jensen,” Trump said when he made many of these people fly to Saudi Arabia to sit near him earlier this year. “Tim Cook isn’t here, but you are.”

Katie: Let’s talk about some of the lesser-known attendees, people who aren’t so instantly recognizable, like:

Jason Chang of biotech company CSBio. John Hering of Lookout and a Musk ally. Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring, and David Limp from Blue Origin (perhaps filling in for Andy Jassy or Jeff Bezos)? Sunny Madra of AI chip maker Groq. Vivek Ranadivé, tech veteran and current owner of the Sacramento Kings. Dylan Field of Figma. Sanjay Mehrotra of Micron. Shyam Sankar, CTO of Palantir (Alex Karp, the CEO, wasn’t there).

Peter: Katie, maybe you don’t know this feeling, but I do: Ever get an invite to a cool thing but it’s happening in, like, a day, which suggests that you’re a last-minute add because someone else dropped out/or they couldn’t fill the room?

Because some of these attendees are … surprising.

Peter: By far, my favorite low-profile attendee is Jared Isaacman. If that name is familiar, it’s because he reportedly played a key role in the Elon Musk/Trump breakup earlier this year.

Musk had put him forward as the head of NASA, and Trump agreed to it, but apparently changed his mind after he learned that Isaacman once said and did nice things for Democrats. This all led to a gnarly White House humiliation. I wonder if Trump remembers that. I’m sure Musk does.

Katie: So clearly there were some tensions here — both between the CEOs and Trump and also with each other. Who at the dinner, excluding Trump, has the biggest beef with each other at the moment?

Peter: Tim vs. Mark is an oldie but goodie.

Katie: Sam Altman and Mark Zuckberg seem to be trading little public barbs lately, and are fighting over poaching employees.

This all leaves me with one big question: Who do you think had the worst time?

Peter: I don’t know! I don’t know who would have a good time at a command performance like this. But I keep thinking about the 2016 version of this roundtable, when just about everyone assembled was profoundly uncomfortable (except maybe Peter Thiel, but it’s hard to figure out when that person is/isn’t comfortable).

I think this time around, some of the folks at the table, like Sacks and Chamath, are delighted about it. And for the rest, they certainly know what the score is.