Elon Musk was notably absent from a White House dinner hosted by President Donald Trump for US tech leaders on Thursday night, marking a stark contrast from his constant presence in the early days of the administration. The dinner, held in the state dining room, included Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Apple’s Tim Cook, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
Musk, the Tesla and xAI CEO, stated on his social media platform X that he had been invited but could not attend, and planned to send a representative. The White House did not respond to requests for comment on his absence.
The event was originally scheduled for the Rose Garden but was moved indoors due to thunderstorms. Trump had previously joked after the election that “Elon won’t go home, I can’t get rid of him,” but the two have since fallen out publicly over policy differences and personal attacks.
Musk’s omission echoes a similar snub in 2022, when then-President Joe Biden did not invite him to an electric vehicle summit, prompting Musk to declare he would not vote for Biden. That incident is said to have stuck with Musk, who retweeted a clip of himself addressing the snub on the day of Trump’s dinner.
Since his falling out with Trump in May, which began with Musk opposing Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” and escalated into accusations about the Epstein files, Musk has vanished from high-profile government events. Meanwhile, rival tech leaders such as Apple’s Tim Cook have grown closer to the administration, with Cook recently gifting Trump a 24-karat-gold souvenir.
