Trump invites Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Larry Fink for China trip: Full list of CEOs joining Beijing summit with Xi Jinping

President Donald Trump has invited more than a dozen of America's most powerful corporate chiefs to accompany him to Beijing this week for a high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as Washington seeks to stabilise a trade relationship worth hundreds of billions of dollars whilst navigating deepening tensions over artificial intelligence, rare earth minerals and the ongoing Iran war.

Also travelling with the delegation are Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman, Cargill's Brian Sikes, Citigroup's Jane Fraser, Coherent's Jim Anderson, GE Aerospace's H. Lawrence Culp Jr., Goldman Sachs's David Solomon, Illumina's Jacob Thaysen, Mastercard's Michael Miebach, Meta Platforms executive Dina Powell McCormick, Micron Technology's Sanjay Mehrotra, Qualcomm's Cristiano Amon and Visa's Ryan McInerney.

Cisco confirmed that its chief Chuck Robbins received a White House invitation but was unable to attend due to the company's earnings schedule.

Notably absent from the group is Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, who said in a recent interview: "We should let the president announce whatever he decides to announce. If invited, it would be a privilege, it would be a great honor to represent the United States." General Motors, Disney and Alphabet, all of which have significant interests in China, were also not listed among the attending companies.

The summit agenda is expected to cover trade, artificial intelligence, export controls, Taiwan and the Iran war, with both sides entering the talks after weeks of escalating tensions. The gathering is primarily focused on keeping the economic relationship stable, with only modest policy announcements widely anticipated. A trade truce reached last October is likely to be extended, while China may announce plans to purchase American soybeans, beef and Boeing aircraft.

US officials have also signalled the possible creation of a Board of Trade designed to keep both sides engaged on economic matters. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has said he "highlighted" in an April 30 call with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng the value of a "new government-to-government Board of Trade," indicating the body could improve trade in goods that do not raise national security concerns, such as agricultural products, whilst excluding sensitive technology like computer chips.

Brett Fetterly, a managing principal at the consultancy The Asia Group who focuses on China, said some within the Trump administration believe "the outcome that matters more than any set of deliverables is stability and space for continued engagement, both to build domestic resilience and to facilitate future deal-making."

China's share of goods imported to the US has also fallen sharply, dropping from 22 per cent at the start of Trump's first term in 2017 to just 7.5 per cent in the first three months of this year, according to government data analysed by Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and co-author of the book “How to Win a Trade War.”

The United States now imports more goods from Taiwan than from China, a shift driven in significant part by the artificial intelligence race, which has American firms purchasing computer chips and servers from the self-governing island. Meanwhile, China has increasingly routed its US-bound products through other Asian countries, whilst American companies have shifted supply chains for electronics to Vietnam and India.

"Washington and Beijing are competing at different levels and different domains, with different theories of victory," said Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow specialising in US-China relations at the Hudson Institute. “President Trump leveraged tariffs not as a weapon against China but as leverage to secure a trade deal. Xi Jinping is angling to win a cold war with the United States.”

Ali Wyne, a senior research and advocacy adviser on US-China relations at the International Crisis Group, pointed to the Iran war as another source of strategic divergence, noting that the disruption to energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz is affecting each country's industrial calculations differently. "The structural frictions between the United States and China, they are growing in number and severity," Wyne said.

Citigroup's Jane Fraser, speaking to CNBC ahead of the trip, offered a more measured perspective from the business community: "I think it's very important to see engagement" between the two economic superpowers, adding, "we all need that engagement to be occurring."

China controls the majority of global rare earth mining and almost all of the processing for minerals widely used in electronics, a chokepoint the Trump administration is working to address through new partnerships and domestic investment, though analysts note this strategy would unfold over several years.

On technology, the US has been pushing to restrict China's access to the most advanced computer chips, including those designed by Nvidia and AMD, which carry the processing power needed to advance artificial intelligence development.

China's dominance in the global automotive sector also remains a point of friction. Its worldwide vehicle exports increased by 21 per cent last year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, with Chinese electric vehicles priced significantly below those produced by American, German, Italian, Japanese and South Korean manufacturers.

Tariffs, too, remain a live issue. The Supreme Court ruled that Trump lacked authority to unilaterally impose many of last year's tariffs, while a federal court last week deemed his temporary replacement tariffs illegal. The administration has since launched national security investigations under the Trade Act of 1974 to construct a new tariff framework that may prove legally durable.

US sanctions on a Chinese oil refinery and dozens of tankers and shipping firms for their role in transporting Iranian oil have added further strain, with Beijing responding by demanding that no party abide by the US penalties against Chinese businesses. The two countries are also at odds over the management of the Panama Canal.