Elon Musk, AI and tech titans, venture capitalists invited to pre-inauguration dinner at dawn of Trump era
FIRST ON FOX: A select group of tech industry titans and venture capitalists will gather in Washington, D.C., this week to welcome the incoming Trump administration and celebrate new opportunities for global innovation in artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship.
Presidents and CEOs from companies on the cutting edge of AI tech and their big financial backers, along with personnel from the incoming administration, will attend a dinner on Thursday organized by Outside the Box Ventures, a firm founded last year by journalist-turned-investment banker Katherine Tarbox, along with Laurent Bili, the French ambassador to the U.S.
The list of those invited to Thursday's dinner includes "DOGE" chief Elon Musk, Silicon Valley investor and GOP mega-donor Peter Thiel, NVCA chief executive Bobby Franklin, incoming White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, OpenAI's Sam Altman, investor Joe Lonsdale and Narya co-founder Colin Greenspon.
"This gathering represents more than discussion. We hope it symbolizes a new chapter in public-private collaboration to harness technology’s transformative power for the nation’s future," a source close to the planning told Fox News Digital. The event comes days before President-elect Trump is inaugurated as the nation's 47th president.
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America's leading entrepreneurs want to seize what Microsoft's Brad Smith has called a "golden opportunity for American technology and economic competitiveness." The aim is for the joined forces of industry leaders and government resources that Trump brought together for Operation Warp Speed, his first administration's lauded COVID-19 vaccine program, to be reproduced for advancements in AI.
The participation of Bili reflects how France is interested in being a leader in AI, with a global action summit on the rapidly developing technology to be held in Paris this February, and believes the U.S. is a valuable partner in this effort.
"We believe this is the hottest ticket for tech and venture capital up to the inauguration," the source said. The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Franklin, the CEO of the National Venture Capital Association, the industry trade group for venture capital, confirmed he plans to attend. He told Fox News Digital there is great excitement in his industry for several of Trump's hires who have backgrounds in venture capital, including Sacks, a billionaire tech executive, and Vice President-elect JD Vance.
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"One of our challenges is always educating, and there's always a lack of understanding of what the venture industry does, how it works with entrepreneurs, how it creates great tech and drugs and everything else in the economy," Franklin said. "And so having folks that understand that coming into the administration is a wonderful, welcome situation from our perspective."
The dinner comes at a critical juncture for the U.S., which leads the world in AI startups but faces tough competition from China and other foreign adversaries.
American companies received more than 40% of global AI funding in 2023, surpassing China and the European Union combined. That same year, U.S. venture capital firms unleashed $17.9 billion in funds for AI startups, contributing to the leaps and bounds in generative AI tech popularized by ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and Grok from xAI.
More than 10,000 AI-related patents have been filed by U.S. entities in the past five years, showcasing the deep bench of American innovators that Franklin and others believe Trump stands ready to support.
But analysts warn that China's recent developments in AI technology pose a challenge to American dominance in this field and may even threaten U.S. national and economic security.
A recent report published by American Edge Project cautions that "China is rapidly advancing its own open-source ecosystem as an alternative to American technology and using it as a Trojan horse to implant its CCP values into global infrastructure."
The report called China's progress "both significant and concerning."
"Chinese-developed open-source AI tools are already outperforming Western models on key benchmarks, while operating at dramatically lower costs, accelerating global adoption. Through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which spans more than 155 countries on four continents, and its Digital Silk Road (DSR), China is exporting its technology worldwide, fostering increased global dependence, undermining democratic norms, and threatening U.S. leadership and global security."
There is a broad expectation that the Trump administration will let the private sector lead the way as the U.S. confronts China. Whereas the Biden administration prioritized establishing "guardrails" for AI development through regulatory bodies, analysts for Perkins Coie note that Trump has promised to revoke a Biden-era executive order that set policy for federal agency AI purchases and uses. The 2024 Republican platform claimed Biden's policy "hinders innovation and imposes Radical Leftwing Ideas," apparently in reference to requirements that the National Institute of Standards and Technology create guidance to ensure AI models are unbiased and do not discriminate based on race or sex.
Additionally, Trump's appointment of Sacks as AI czar signals his thinking on AI is in line with Sacks' associates Musk and Thiel, who each co-founded PayPal and favor a deregulatory agenda.
"The new czar will likely be tasked with coordinating with federal agencies and outside stakeholders to ensure consistent guidance regarding AI use in the federal government. We would expect Sacks to be less focused on the potential harms of AI and more focused on promoting and facilitating AI innovation with fewer restraints," Perkins Coie said.
Thursday's gathering is a strictly nonpartisan event, though Silicon Valley's high interest in building relationships with a Republican administration would seem to signal shifting political priorities.
Previously, issues like immigration and climate change distanced Big Tech from the GOP. And when Trump first ran for president, his populist MAGA movement was an unknown factor that led many entrepreneurs to keep that distance.
But a growing recognition of AI as a national priority has appeared to bridge that gap. So has a more clearly defined Trump, with key players in his second administration that have ties to the venture capital world.
"You know, it was certainly a political outsider that won in 2016," Franklin said. "Now, he's not an outsider."