Elon Musk and Tim Cook Join Trump on High-Stakes China Trip to Seek Mega Boeing Deal

A high-profile delegation of US corporate leaders, including Tesla’s Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook, will join US President Donald Trump on his visit to China this week to negotiate major trade and investment agreements, Reuters reported on May 11.

The White House delegation is heavily stacked with Wall Street and Silicon Valley elites.

According to a US official who spoke to Reuters, the group features GE Aerospace’s Larry Culp, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick, and the chief executives of Micron, Mastercard, Visa, and Qualcomm. Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins was also invited but declined due to upcoming corporate earnings releases.

A primary focus of the trip is securing a monumental win for the US aviation sector. Reuters reports that Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg is joining the delegation in hopes of finalizing a long-awaited deal that could include 500 737 MAX jets and dozens of widebody planes powered by GE engines.

If finalized, it would mark China’s first major Boeing purchase since 2017 and potentially the largest single airplane order in history.

In addition to aviation, the two nations are expected to establish mutual trade forums and announce major Chinese purchases of American agricultural and energy products, according to Reuters. Representatives from Cargill, Coherent, and Illumina are also attending the summit to facilitate these sectoral agreements.

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The diplomatic meeting follows an October meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, where the leaders agreed to pause a bruising trade war marked by triple-digit US tariffs and Beijing’s threats to restrict the global supply of rare earth minerals.

Reuters noted that negotiators will discuss extending that crucial rare earth truce during this week’s visit.

Notably absent from the delegation is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Huang was not invited, as the administration is prioritizing agriculture and commercial aviation.

While Trump previously authorized the export of Nvidia’s H200 AI chips to China, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently confirmed that sales have stalled due to Beijing withholding purchasing permissions from Chinese companies.

The trade summit coincides with mounting scrutiny over Beijing quietly supplying Russia’s military. According to a recent investigation, Chinese navigation giant Harxon uses shell companies to funnel military-grade drone antennas to Russia, disguising them as “agricultural machinery,” while continuing to operate freely across Western markets.

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