BEIJING, May 14, 2026 — President Donald Trump revealed in an interview recorded in Beijing that he caught Chinese President Xi Jinping off guard at the start of their summit by bringing approximately 30 of America’s top business executives into the room unannounced — a spontaneous addition to the agenda that Trump said the Chinese side had not expected.
“I suggested that before we start the meeting, I’d like to introduce them to you,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview recorded at the Four Seasons Hotel Beijing. “And they were surprised because it wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t scheduled.”
Trump said the Chinese delegation visibly scrambled to accommodate the unscheduled introduction. “They looked around, they said, ‘Well…'” he recalled, trailing off before describing how the executives were brought in from nearby. “I said, ‘I think we can get them in five minutes,’ because they were literally few minutes away from the room where we were, in the Great Hall.”
Who Was in the Room
The delegation of American business leaders accompanying Trump to Beijing was one of the largest ever assembled for a presidential trip to China. It included Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — who joined the trip as a late addition, boarding at a stopover in Alaska.
Trump said he did not personally invite the executives. “They all wanted to come, and they’re all here,” he told Hannity. “From chips to planes to everything — we had everybody.”
Huang, for his part, called the Beijing summit “one of the most important summits in human history” in remarks to reporters. Musk told reporters he wanted to accomplish “many good things” while in China.
‘Hot Stuff Back Home’
Trump described a notable shift in the room once the executives stepped in front of the Chinese leadership. Men who were household names and commanding figures in America suddenly found themselves in unfamiliar territory.
“It’s a little different position for them because they’re hot stuff back in our country, but here they are,” Trump said. “They’re standing in front of this, you know, massive country, the leadership.”
Trump said most of the executives had never met Xi before the summit. “Almost all of them, most of them, never met President Xi,” he said. “This was the first time they’ve met him.”
Xi welcomed the introduction. According to China’s state-backed Xinhua news agency, Trump told Xi upon arrival that the executives were “distinguished representatives from the American business community” who “all respect and value China.” Xi responded by telling the group that China would “open wider” and that American companies “will have broader prospects in China.”
A Diplomatic Signal
The unscheduled CEO introduction represented a deliberate blurring of the line between official diplomacy and commercial deal-making — a hallmark of Trump’s approach to foreign policy. By bringing the executives into the room before formal talks began, Trump framed the summit from the outset as an opportunity for business, not just geopolitics.
“They do business in China,” Trump said of the assembled executives. “Most of them do business here, but probably like to do more. And I’d like to see them do more — that would be good for trade and trade balance.”
The summit covered trade, artificial intelligence, Taiwan, Iran, rare earths, and cybersecurity. China’s foreign ministry announced at the conclusion of the two-day visit that Xi had accepted Trump’s invitation to visit the United States in the fall.
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