Trump-Musk ties thawing? Tesla CEO invited to White House dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Earlier in September, Elon Musk had declined an invitation by Trump to attend a dinner for top tech and business leaders at the White House, following a dramatic fallout with Donald Trump in June.
Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk is expected to attend the dinner that US President Donald Trump is hosting for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Washington, DC, on Tuesday. The visit is MBS's first to the US in seven years, since the 2018 killing of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi that sparked global outrage.
Musk, along with golfer Tiger Woods, was invited to the East Room dinner at the White House by Trump, as per Punchbowl News.
It is, however, unclear whether the Tesla CEO has accepted the invite.
The dinner will follow a bilateral meeting between Trump and MBS at the White House and will take place ahead of the US-Saudi Arabia investment forum, to be held at the John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts.
The forum is expected to include CEOs from Chevron, Qualcomm, Cisco, General Dynamics and Pfizer, Reuters reported, citing sources.
Senior executives from IBM, Alphabet's Google, Salesforce, Andreessen Horowitz, Halliburton, Adobe, Aramco, State Street, and Parsons Corp are also expected to attend the forum, the news agency said.
‘Unfortunately, couldn’t attend'
Earlier in September, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had declined an invitation from Trump to attend a dinner for top tech and business leaders at the White House, following a dramatic fallout with the US President in June.
While there were conflicting reports at the time on whether Musk had been snubbed, the Tesla CEO took to X to dispel the rumours, saying that he was, in fact, invited to the event but had other obligations.
"A representative of mine will be there,” Musk had said at the time in reply to an X user, who questioned in disbelief: “Bill Gates but not Elon Musk….wtf?”
After their fallout, Trump and Musk, however, were seen in public for the first time in September as well, at a memorial service for slain activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot dead.
What's on the agenda for the Trump-MBS meet?
Trump and the Saudi Crown Prince will seek to deepen their decades-old cooperation on oil and security, Reuters reported, adding that the Kingdom and the US will also aim to expand ties in commerce, technology, and even nuclear energy.
The agency reported that Saudi Arabia has been pushing for deals related to nuclear energy and artificial intelligence (AI) as Riyadh eyes the realization of its ambitious Vision 2030 plan, under which it aims to become a global player in AI tech to compete with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which recently signed a multibillion dollar AI deal with the US for access to high-end computing chips.
The Trump-MBS meeting on Tuesday is also likely to feature the sale of Lockheed Martin's advanced F-35 jets, with the US President on Monday saying, "I will say that we will be doing that. We’ll be selling F-35s.”
The sale of one of the world's most advanced fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, if completed, would come as a major concession to the Kingdom as the US seeks to pressure it to join the Abraham Accords to normalise relations with Israel.
Trump had visited the Kingdom in May, with Saudi Arabia pledging $600 billion in investments in the US.