President of China Xi Jinping clinks glasses with U.S. first lady Melania Trump as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a state dinner in the East Room of the White House on September 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Tech and media titans… as well as a small army of Fox News hosts descended on the White House Thursday evening to attend the state dinner honoring China’s president Xi Jinping.
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump hosted the dinner, which was heavy on corporate bigwigs.
According to a guest list released by the White House, attendees included Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, just days after his company inked a settlement to clear its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery… including CNN, which saw its reporters denied access to the state dinner even after a federal judge reinstated their press passes to the White House complex.
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But it was mostly tech giants in attendance, with photos showing Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk sitting at the head table with Trump and Xi, joined by Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Apple’s Tim Cook.
Earlier this week, there were reports that Ellison may ask Musk to invest in Paramount as part of its WBD takeover.
Other attendees included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, TikTok investor Jeff Yass, and LCMH CEO Bernard Arnault, along with a slew of other CEOs from finance, manufacturing and other industries.
And there was also a Fox News contingent, with hosts Jesse Watters and Laura Ingraham as well as anchor Bret Baier all making the cut too. Podcast hosts, including Katie Miller (the wife of White House aide Stephen Miller) and David Sacks (tech investor and All-In co-host) were on the list, as was Cheryl Hines, who was there with her husband RFK Jr.
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