OpenAI president and MAGA Inc. donor to attend Trump-Xi state dinner

Por Sophia Cai and Cheyenne Haslett — POLITICO – TOP Stories

OpenAI President Greg Brockman is expected to attend President Donald Trump’s state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House this week, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans and a spokesperson for OpenAI who were were granted anonymity to discuss the arrangements.

Brockman was not included on an initial, partial list of tech and business leaders that a senior U.S. official provided to reporters on Friday. That list of expected attendees included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and former Apple CEO Tim Cook.

The senior U.S. official described the dinner as “a very popular and hot ticketed event.”

Brockman and other Silicon Valley executives’ participation comes as the White House is grappling with national security concerns related to the AI industry and specifically ensuring the U.S. remains competitive with China. The White House has repeatedly said its posture on the topic is focused on preserving American leadership while managing the national security risks posed by increasingly powerful systems.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brockman and his wife, Anna, gave a combined $25 million to MAGA Inc., the pro-Trump super PAC, in 2025, according to campaign finance records. The contribution made the couple among the largest individual donors to Trump’s political operation. The donations were made in a personal capacity and not on behalf of OpenAI.

But Brockman has previously said that his political giving is intended to support policies favorable to American innovation and the development of artificial intelligence and that his supportwas rooted in OpenAI’s broader mission: “This mission, in my mind, is bigger than companies, bigger than corporate structures.”

The state dinner, scheduled for Thursday, will be one of the most closely watched social events of Xi’s visit, as Trump and Chinese officials seek to manage tensions over trade and AI, among other issues. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Chinese officials have also been discussing a mechanism for notifying each other about major AI-related incidents.

The gathering will bring together senior administration officials, corporate executives and major political donors, including many of the technology leaders whose companies are directly affected by the administration’s China and AI policies.

Many in the AI industry have been urging the administration to take a more hands-on role in AI governance in the lead up to the meetings, including a public call for frontier AI companies to pace their development from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, which Altman and OpenAI endorsed. Altman on Monday alsocalled for the U.S. to take the lead on creating international technical standards for AI safety, a proposal he will present to the U.N. Security Council ahead of the dinner this week.

POLITICO’s Megan Messerly contributed to this report. 

Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories