Apple's Tim Cook is among 20 Big Tech CEOs invited to a White House dinner at the new Rose Garden Patio, preceded by an AI presentation led by Melania Trump.
Tim Cook will be among around two dozen technology CEOs heading for the White House. According to The Hill, the event consists of a presentation on AI hosted by Melania Trump and a dinner in the newly-redesigned Rose Garden.
"The Rose Garden Club at the White House is the hottest place to be in Washington, or perhaps the world," said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle. "The president looks forward to welcoming top business, political, and tech leaders for this dinner and the many dinners to come on the new, beautiful Rose Garden patio."
As well as Cook, the invited CEOs include Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft's Bill Gates and Satya Nadella, and OpenAI founder Sam Altman. Google's Sergey Brin and Sundar Pichai are also invited, as is Oracle's Safra Catz.
Initial reports said that Elon Musk was not invited, but the Tesla CEO later said on X denied this. I was invited, but unfortunately could not attend," he wrote. "A representative of mine will be there."
The Rose Garden was created in 1902 by Edith Roosevelt, who had an unused area of land designed into a formal garden, chiefly known for its roses. Jacqueline Kennedy oversaw its expansion in the 1960s, creating a lawn where many Presidential events have since taken place.
This dinner with CEOs is the first event to be held on the site since President Trump had the lawn ripped up and replaced with a stone patio.
It's also the first time that Cook will have visited the White House since he presented Trump with a gold and glass commemorative plaque in August 2025.
Update 2:20 PM ET: Initial sources, including the White House, said that the event was on September 9. That has been corrected.
