"When Donald Trump hosts leaders from the US' biggest tech companies at a lavish Rose Garden dinner on Thursday night, there will be one notable absence. Elon Musk, once inseparable from Trump and a constant, contentious presence in the White House, will not be in attendance. The dinner, which will include Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft's Bill Gates, Apple's Tim Cook and OpenAI's Sam Altman, is exactly the type of event where Musk would have sat at Trump's right hand only a few months ago."
"Musk's omission from the list of attendees also echoes one of the seminal moments of his political evolution, another White House event. In 2022, then-president Joe Biden failed to invite the Tesla CEO to a summit on electric vehicles over concerns it would draw backlash from autoworkers unions. Musk, who had not yet publicly aligned himself with the Republican party, lashed out at the White House for the snub and declared that he would not vote for Biden. The move proved enormously costly for Democrats."
President Trump will host leaders from major US tech companies at a Rose Garden dinner that includes Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft's Bill Gates, Apple's Tim Cook and OpenAI's Sam Altman. Elon Musk was invited but said he could not attend and planned to send a representative, while posting attacks on immigration and trans people on X. Musk's absence marks a turnaround from his former close association with Trump and follows a public falling out earlier this year. Musk spent hundreds of millions to support Trump's 2024 campaign, yet his influence with the government has waned. Musk's political evolution included a 2022 Biden summit snub that reshaped partisan alignments.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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