An upcoming White House event on AI will feature some of Silicon Valley’s most influential executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Notably absent from the guest list, however, is Elon Musk.
That’s according to The Hill, which reported on Wednesday that, in addition to Zuck, Cook, and Gates, OpenAI founder Sam Altman, Musk’s avowed enemy, has also been invited.
Musk, however, claims that he was, in fact, invited to the event, but it just didn’t fit into his busy schedule. “I was invited, but unfortunately could not attend,” Musk claimed, on his platform X. “A representative of mine will be there,” he added. It’s unclear who this “representative” is. Gizmodo reached out for more information.
Not a whole lot of information about the event has been released, but what we do know is that it will culminate with a dinner at the newly renovated White House Rose Garden. Trump recently paved over the lawn next to the famous garden, which was planted by Jackie Kennedy in 1961. In an appropriately sleazy move, Trump has begun calling the new space a “club.”
“The Rose Garden Club at the White House is the hottest place to be in Washington, or perhaps the world,” a White House spokesperson told The Hill. “The president looks forward to welcoming top business, political, and tech leaders for this dinner and the many dinners to come on the new, beautiful Rose Garden patio.”
Anyway, Musk won’t be showing up at the “club” or “patio” or whatever you want to call it.
Trump and Musk were joined at the hip earlier this year—thanks, presumably, to the nearly $300 million that Musk spent trying to get Trump re-elected. For a brief, halcyon period, Musk was dubbed Trump’s “first buddy” and allowed to galivant through the halls of the White House with a team of pimple-faced goons who were dedicated to fighting “fraud and abuse.” The Attorney General even offered to make Tesla vandalism a federal “terrorism” crime.
However, Musk proved too tiresome for many of Trump’s inner circle. Indeed, one disgruntled White House official characterized the billionaire as annoying, unfunny, and “the most irritating person I’ve ever had to deal with,” suggesting that the Tesla CEO be required to take a drug test. Not long afterward, Musk exited the administration and, within several weeks, became embroiled in an online feud with the president, during which he accused Trump of being in the Jeffrey Epstein files. Good times just don’t last, I guess.
During an interview with CNN’s resident MAGA commentator, Scott Jennings, on Wednesday night, Trump towed the line between praising Musk and criticizing him for marching to the beat of his own drum. “He’s got 80% super genius, and then 20% he’s got some problems. And when he works out the 20%, he’ll be great,” Trump said. “I always liked him. I like him now. But he went off the reservation, and he wished he didn’t do it,” the president added.
If the White House really did snub Musk, it would appear to be further proof that the billionaire is not a “genius.” After all, one of the things that Musk originally resented about the Biden administration is that it snubbed him during a 2021 White House EV summit. Now, having spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get Trump elected, he is going to miss another gathering of the biggest players in a game he wants to win. Who won’t be missing it? Sam Altman, who wasn’t reported to have spent any money during the 2024 presidential election and contributed a mere $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. In addition to his invitation to the party, Altman’s Stargate Project is also being supported by the White House, which just goes to show that, when it comes to the world of power and influence, the price of admission is cheap if you play your cards right. Then again, if you’re a floundering ass-clown, you can spend the GDP of a small nation, and no one will care who you are.
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