Trump and Tech Leaders: Zuckerberg’s Unpreparedness at White House Dinner

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump held a dinner at the White House on September 4th, bringing together leading figures from the global tech sector. Among the attendees were Tim Cook from Apple, Satya Nadella and Bill Gates from Microsoft, Sundar Pichai from Google, Sam Altman from OpenAI, Alexandr Wang from Scale AI, and Mark Zuckerberg from Meta. Several unplanned events occurred during the dinner. Zuckerberg’s comment to Bill Gates, praising Trump’s vaccine record, was a notable one. During a conversation, Zuckerberg was asked about concerns over free speech in Britain and replied, “Sorry, I wasn’t ready.” The comment was picked up by a live microphone, prompting laughter from President Trump, who then repeated the phrase to Melania. Trump joked that this was the beginning of Zuckerberg’s political aspirations, to which Zuckerberg quickly countered. Elon Musk, though invited, was unable to attend the meeting.