Original title: 8 CEOs on Air Force One just ended the American Power Narrative
Original author: Mustufa Khan
Translated by: Peggy
Editor's note: During Trump's visit to China, besides the meeting between the leaders of China and the U.S., what stands out is the list of American corporate executives accompanying him: Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jen-Hsun Huang, Larry Fink, and heads from Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Citigroup, among others, all appeared in the delegation.
Why did these CEOs come? The reasons are not complicated. Tesla needs the Chinese market and the Shanghai factory, Apple needs to maintain its supply chain in China, Nvidia needs to reopen the Chinese AI chip market, Boeing is waiting for big orders from China, and Wall Street institutions are concerned about licenses, asset management, and capital market access. They belong to different industries but point to the same reality: for many leading American companies, China remains an irreplaceable market, production base, and regulatory access point.
Therefore, this article really discusses not the pageantry of a diplomatic visit, nor a few potential orders that might land, but the structural dependence of American companies on the Chinese market.
The following is the original text:
Yesterday, Trump arrived in Beijing, accompanied by Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jen-Hsun Huang, Larry Fink, and several other top American corporate CEOs. The commercial value behind this delegation is astounding: these entrepreneurs have a combined net worth of about $1.07 trillion, which exceeds the GDP of almost all economies in the world, except for a few countries.
This visit has been referred to as a summit.
But from the signals released on the spot, it seems more like a board meeting of global business power: China acts as the chairman of the meeting, Trump as one of the directors, while the accompanying U.S. corporate CEOs resemble a business team brought on-site to endorse the final transaction proposal.
Over the past 70 years, the core narrative of American power is being repriced. Many observers still focus their attention on diplomacy, slogans, and short-term deals, not noticing the structural changes that are truly taking place.
The brass band on the tarmac, uniformly dressed Chinese children, and a series of carefully designed welcoming ceremonies are easily interpreted as the usual diplomatic pageantry. But what truly matters is not these images themselves but who is setting the rhythm for this visit.
Every agenda item publicly scheduled for this visit has been almost entirely arranged by the Chinese side. This means that the agenda is dominated by China, and Trump is more in response to a pre-set agenda rather than actively shaping the agenda. Trump arrives, China receives. This alone is enough to constitute the most important political and commercial signal of the week.
A country that truly possesses leverage typically does not reveal its desires before entering the meeting room; on the contrary, a country whose leverage is diminishing often compensates for the lack of negotiation chips with a more high-profile public narrative. The U.S. president flies to Beijing, backed by today's most influential group of American corporate CEOs, and before he lands, a press release is already listing out every key item on the agenda.
By Friday evening, it is highly likely that this visit will yield some concrete results: a few Boeing orders, some quietly advanced chip export licenses, and several agricultural and trade commitments. These will be packaged as diplomatic victories. However, what truly deserves attention this week is not these superficial outcomes but the composition of the delegation itself.
Let’s see who is on this plane and what each of them needs to gain from Beijing.
Elon Musk: The Shanghai factory remains Tesla's lifeline
The Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory commenced production in 2019. By 2026, this factory has contributed nearly half of Tesla's global vehicle production, with deliveries from this single base reaching 213,000 cars in the first quarter alone. Musk's investment in the Shanghai production system amounts to billions of dollars, including a $2 billion-level Gigafactory and a $200 million Megapack energy storage factory.
The Chinese market accounts for about a quarter of Tesla's revenue. Over the past two years, Musk has repeatedly warned about the risks posed by authoritarian nations and the inevitability of decoupling between China and the U.S. But this week, he boards Air Force One to Beijing with one of his core objectives being to ensure the stable operation of the Shanghai factory.
This is the contradiction Musk must confront: he is one of the most outspoken critics of China in the American business sphere, yet also one of the American CEOs most reliant on the policy environment in Beijing. This contradiction goes beyond mere posturing in the public discourse; it’s a reality he needs to deal with personally in Beijing, in front of Xi Jinping, and in front of the cameras.
Tim Cook: The last diplomatic visit to China before end of term
Cook will retire on September 1, with John Ternus succeeding him as CEO of Apple. For Cook, this trip to China could very well be his last major diplomatic engagement as CEO, and at this moment, he must handle the most difficult part of the Apple narrative to explain.
Over the past five years, Cook has emphasized to Congress, shareholders, and the media that Apple is moving its iPhone production out of China. This claim is not without basis. Most iPhones sold in the U.S. market are now assembled in India. In May 2025, Foxconn invested $1.5 billion into its Indian subsidiary.
Diversification is happening. But the issue lies beyond the U.S. market.
iPhones sold to nearly 200 other countries and regions remain highly dependent on the Chinese assembly system. This means that even though Apple has begun to shift parts of its supply chain, its global supply system is still deeply tied to the manufacturing network in China.
This week, Cook sits in a Chinese government building, and what he must do is not to prove that Apple has escaped from China, but to ensure that this yet-to-be-completely-transferred supply chain can continue to operate stably, at least enough to hand over this issue to the next CEO.
Jen-Hsun Huang: The person Trump personally called to get on the plane
Jen-Hsun Huang was not originally on the delegation list. He had planned to skip this trip because his appearance could trigger a new round of scrutiny within the Republican Party regarding Nvidia's sale of chips to China. On Tuesday morning, Trump personally called Huang, asking him to join the delegation. Less than 24 hours later, Huang flew to Alaska and boarded Air Force One.
Trump needs Huang to be present on-site primarily due to the H200 chip issue.
Nvidia's H200 AI accelerator was banned from being sold to China during the Biden administration, and it was subsequently replaced by the performance-reduced H20. However, H20 faced further restrictions in April 2025, leading Nvidia to write down $5.5 billion. By the end of 2025, Trump approved the re-export of H200 to China, imposing a 25% tariff initiated by U.S. customs. Meanwhile, Beijing privately informed clients to suspend purchases.
It has been six months since the White House lifted the ban, but no H200 chips have yet been delivered to Chinese buyers. During this period, Nvidia's market share in China dropped from 95% to nearly 0.
Therefore, Huang's appearance this week in Beijing is one of the most critical corporate negotiations in the entire visit. He is the only one at the negotiating table who truly understands the boundaries of chips: which chips can be sold, which technologies cannot be released, and how to maintain revenue from the Chinese market without allowing China to gain sufficient computational power to completely catch up with Nvidia.
This figure cannot be articulated by the Secretary of the Treasury, nor can Trump do it. The person who truly understands the technological boundaries and commercial costs is Huang. In other words, he is the key party in this negotiation, while the president is more like the one bringing him into the room.
Larry Fink: Managing $11 trillion in assets but still can't bypass China licenses
BlackRock crossed the $11 trillion threshold in assets under management in 2024 and continues to grow. Larry Fink's business layout in China has long been at the center of political controversy in the U.S.
In 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives' "China Issues Select Committee" investigated BlackRock and MSCI, accusing them of directing American investor funds to certain Chinese companies blacklisted for alleged military or human rights issues.
Since then, BlackRock has closed its offshore China equity funds, and its head in China, Tang Xiaodong, resigned. At the same time, several of BlackRock's funds in China have also reported losses.
Fink boarded this plane this week because if BlackRock wants to maintain its status as the largest global asset management institution by 2035, securing licenses in China is an almost unavoidable route. And these licenses are held by Beijing.
The same congressional committee that investigated him three years ago is closely watching this visit. He must achieve sufficient results from Beijing to prove that continuing to remain in the Chinese market is commercially rational; at the same time, he cannot allow outsiders to think that he sacrificed U.S. national security interests for market access.
In this entire visit, Fink may have to navigate through the narrowest of needles.
Kelly Ortberg: Boeing CEO waiting for Chinese orders for nearly a decade
Since receiving procurement commitments worth over $37 billion for a total of 300 airplanes during Trump's 2017 visit to China, Boeing has not received any significant orders from China.
The two 737 MAX accidents in 2018 and 2019, the pandemic, the trade war, and Boeing's own long-term production crisis have combined to freeze Chinese orders for nearly a decade.
Reportedly, the deal on the negotiating table this week could include 500 737 MAX and about 100 wide-body aircraft. If it lands, this would become one of Boeing's largest single aircraft orders in history. Ortberg acknowledged in an interview with Reuters last month that Boeing is relying on the White House to push this order through, and this deal had previously been constrained to some extent by engine parts stuck in tariff disputes.
In the first four months of 2026, Boeing secured 284 net orders, marking its best start since 2014. However, the company's capacity and delivery pace are still under pressure.
A mega order from China may not immediately change Boeing's guidance for 2026, but it is sufficient to boost market valuations of the company’s stock and provide Ortberg with the operational validation that the board has long awaited. The reason he is on this plane is that Boeing has waited for 9 years and cannot return empty-handed.
David Solomon: Gatekeeper of Goldman Sachs' fully owned China business
Goldman Sachs obtained full ownership of its securities business in China in 2021, becoming one of the few American financial institutions with fully owned domestic securities operations in China.
For Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, the core goal of this trip to Beijing is to ensure that this license continues to hold practical commercial value. Over the past three years, the regulatory environment for foreign financial institutions in China has continued to tighten, making the growth space for foreign banks in investment banking, asset management, and wealth management areas in China increasingly uncertain.
Domestic investment banking, asset management, and wealth management businesses targeting Chinese clients are important directions for Goldman Sachs's long-term revenue sources. If Beijing determines that foreign banks are no longer suitable for entering key areas, then Goldman Sachs's strategic path built around the Chinese market over the past 15 years will face reevaluation.
Solomon's task in Beijing this week is to ensure that such a reevaluation does not occur.
Stephen Schwarzman: The business politician connecting Washington and Beijing for 20 years
Schwarzman is one of the most senior business politicians in the delegation. Blackstone is projected to cross $1.3 trillion in assets under management in the first quarter of 2026, becoming the first alternative asset management institution to reach this scale.
He founded the Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University in Beijing, attempting to cultivate bridge-building leaders between China and the U.S. in a manner similar to the Rhodes Scholarship. Over the years, Schwarzman has publicly advocated that the future of China and the U.S. is more likely to be one of "coexisting spheres of influence" rather than complete confrontation.
He has spent 20 years building relationships with high-level figures in China, a resource that most other members of the delegation do not possess.
The value of Schwarzman’s presence this trip is not in what he can obtain directly from Beijing, but in what he can privately convey to Trump: how Xi Jinping would interpret the on-site atmosphere, which concessions might be possible, and what conditions would not cause either side to lose face.
In a sense, he is the member of the American delegation closest to being a "Kissinger-type figure." More importantly, he is the only one on this plane who has long viewed U.S.-China relations as an investment proposition rather than a quarterly issue.
Jane Fraser: Citigroup CEO still waiting for China licenses
Citigroup has exited its early joint venture arrangements in China and has been waiting for Beijing to approve its fully owned securities brokerage license. However, this application has still not materialized.
Meanwhile, Citigroup is also embroiled in a dispute with a fuel company in Zhejiang. Fraser is accompanying this trip because Citigroup's strategic intentions within China are still stuck at the door, and she needs Chinese regulatory authorities to push this long-stalled license application.
Amid the current U.S.-China standoff, Citigroup is one of the most squeezed American financial institutions. Mastercard, Visa, and Citigroup are all striving for payment and capital market access, and these access rights are still controlled by Beijing.
Among the CEOs of several major financial institutions, Fraser has the least leverage at the negotiating table, but her need may be the greatest.
Other businesses on the plane
The delegation also includes executives from Meta, Mastercard, Visa, Micron, Illumina, Cargill, Coherent, and GE Aerospace. They each face different issues, but the underlying logic is highly similar: they all depend on the market, licenses, supply chains, or regulatory resources controlled by Beijing to some degree.
Mastercard and Visa seek payment access. Micron hopes to lift restrictions on storage chip exports. Illumina has been listed by the Chinese government as an "unreliable entity." Cargill needs soybean orders from China. GE Aerospace offers engines for the planes that China may procure from Boeing.
The reason these firms are appearing in this delegation is that Beijing controls certain key resources that are difficult for them to replace in the next five years.
Common thread: American companies’ dependence on China
The 8 CEOs correspond to 8 different forms of dependence on China.
Each of them boarded Air Force One this week because their respective companies have formed a structure of high dependence on the Chinese market or Chinese supply chains over the past few decades. Access to the Chinese market, regulatory licenses, manufacturing systems, order commitments, and policy signals are no longer merely options for growth for these companies but are increasingly becoming strategic necessities.
And the person who holds these keys is exactly the person they flew halfway across the globe to meet.
Since around 2010, the American corporate elite has continuously constructed a narrative for itself: they seem able to operate on top of ordinary political governance friction. Founders speak directly to users, boards often endorse the CEO’s decisions, and regulators are always chasing after already distorted business models.
Many institutions in the U.S. have attempted to challenge this narrative, but with limited effect.
Over the past 20 years, the Senate has repeatedly summoned these CEOs but rarely has succeeded in placing them at the same table on the same day. Antitrust investigations often last for years, and by the time they end, the technological cycle has already undergone change. Many Americans watch these hearings on YouTube, yet find it hard to name any piece of legislation that has truly transformed the industry landscape that resulted from these hearings.
But Beijing has accomplished something else: it has enabled these American business leaders to travel halfway around the globe and sit down at the same conference table under China's agenda, Chinese cities, and Chinese protocols.
This is the part that truly deserves vigilance this week. The leverage to convene the American power elite no longer entirely exists within the U.S. political system. At least at this moment, it exists in Beijing, and is being openly demonstrated.
By 2026, the most constraining power over the behavior of American businesses may no longer just be Washington's congressional hearings, judicial investigations, or regulatory agencies, but rather the market exclusion rights held by the Chinese regulatory state.
This leverage is simple and effective: access, or lose access.
After the summit, real changes will not be written into a joint statement
This visit will conclude on Friday. At that time, both sides are likely to issue a joint statement and announce some concrete outcomes concerning Boeing orders, agricultural procurements, and some industrial cooperation.
American media may interpret these results as proof of pragmatic engagement; Chinese media, on the other hand, may see them as evidence of China's continued central role in the global economy. Both narratives may not be entirely incorrect, but they may overlook the structural changes that truly emerged this week.
What is truly important is that the American corporate class has publicly acknowledged that key decisions impacting their revenue and growth pathways in the next decade are increasingly being made in a room presided over by Xi Jinping.
These CEOs on Air Force One represent the first concentrated display of this model. In the future, any American company still hoping to gain exposure to the Chinese market will likely have to come to Beijing in a similar manner and accept similar conditions.
The scenes on the tarmac are not just displays of American power. They reveal who has the ability to summon American power and bring it across the Pacific when needed.
As Washington still explains why this shift in power cannot happen, the leverage has quietly shifted.
Whether the outside world is willing to admit it or not, the new boardroom is in Beijing.
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