 "Hot mic catches Zuckerberg admitting his $600 bn vow to Trump was a guess")
At a high-profile White House dinner with America’s top tech leaders, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made headlines — not for his pledge of $600 billion, but for what came after. A hot mic later caught him admitting to Donald Trump that he had guessed the number.
The dinner, hosted by US President Donald Trump on Thursday, brought together Apple’s Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Oracle chief Safra Catz and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
Trump, calling it a “high-IQ group”, praised the executives as innovators leading a “revolution in business and genius”. Seated between Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, Zuckerberg was the first asked about his company’s US investment plans.
Caught off guard, Zuckerberg blurts out figure
When Trump turned to him, Zuckerberg appeared unprepared. “Oh gosh, um, I think it is probably gonna be, something like, I don’t know, at least $600 billion through 2028, in the US, yeah,” he said.
Trump responded enthusiastically: “That’s a lot, thank you, Mark, it’s great to have you.”
Hot mic reveals private confession
Moments later, in a private aside picked up by a hot mic, Zuckerberg admitted to Trump that he had not been ready for the question. “Sorry, I wasn’t ready… I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with,” he said.
Trump laughed and shared the exchange with Melania, and the clip soon went viral across social media platforms.
Musk absent from tech leaders’ gathering
While the dinner saw nearly every major tech figure at the table, Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk was notably absent. His nonappearance drew attention as the rest of Silicon Valley’s power players mingled with the President over investments and policy.