Apple executive chairman Tim Cook is expected to be among the attendees at a White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping, reports Bloomberg.
The former Apple CEO transitioned to the title of executive chairman on September 1, when John Ternus took over the top spot. One of the responsibilities of Cook’s new role is to engage with policymakers around the globe.
U.S. President Donald Trump has invited Cook, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and other top dogs to the dinner scheduled to be held next week during Xi’s visit to Washington.
This isn’t the first time Cook has visited the White House for such shindigs, and is also not the first state dinner with Xi. Earlier this year, cook attended a state dinner held by Xi for Trump in Beijing. In 2015, Cook was seated next to Xi at a state dinner hosted by then-President Barack Obama.
As pointed out by Bloomberg, Xi’s visit to the US comes at a delicate time for US-Chinese relations. Global tensions are brewing over the AI race, international trade and the Middle East.