Original Title: 8 CEOs on Air Force One Just Ended the American Power Narrative

Original Author: Mustufa Khan

Translation: Peggy

Editor's Note: Beyond the meeting between the US and Chinese leaders themselves during Trump's visit to China, the list of accompanying American business executives is more noteworthy: Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jensen Huang, Larry Fink, along with leaders from Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Citigroup, and other companies were all part of the delegation.

Why did these CEOs come? The reasons are straightforward. Tesla needs the Chinese market and its Shanghai factory, Apple needs to maintain its Chinese supply chain, NVIDIA needs to reopen the Chinese AI chip market, Boeing awaits large orders from China, and Wall Street institutions care about licenses, asset management, and capital market access. They belong to different industries, but they all point to the same reality: for many top American companies, China remains an irreplaceable market, production base, and regulatory gateway.

Therefore, this article is not really about the pomp of a diplomatic visit, nor about a few potential orders that might land. It is about the structural dependence of American companies on the Chinese market.

Here is the original text:

Yesterday, Trump arrived in Beijing, accompanied by Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jensen Huang, Larry Fink, and several other top US corporate CEOs. The business scale represented by this delegation is staggering: the combined net worth of these entrepreneurs is approximately $1.07 trillion, surpassing the GDP of most economies globally except for a few countries.

Outside observers are calling this visit a summit.

But judging by the signals released on the ground, it felt more like a board meeting of global business power: China was the chairman presiding over the meeting, Trump was one of the directors, and the accompanying US corporate CEOs resembled a business team brought in to endorse the final deal package.

The core narrative of American power over the past 70 years is being repriced. However, many observers remain fixated on protocol, slogans, and short-term deals, failing to see the structural changes truly taking place.

The brass band on the tarmac, the uniformly dressed Chinese children, and a series of meticulously designed welcoming ceremonies are easily interpreted as standard diplomatic pageantry. But what truly matters is not these images themselves, but who is setting the pace of this visit.

Almost every agenda item on the public schedule of this visit was arranged by the Chinese side. This means the initiative for the agenda lies with China, while Trump is more responding to a predetermined agenda rather than actively shaping one. Trump arrives; China hosts. This alone constitutes the most important political and commercial signal of the week.

A country with genuine leverage typically does not reveal what it wants publicly before entering the meeting room. Conversely, a country with diminishing leverage often compensates for its weaker bargaining position with a more assertive public narrative. The US President flies to Beijing, followed by a lineup of the most influential American corporate CEOs today, and before he even lands, press releases have already listed every key item on the agenda.

By Friday evening, this visit will likely yield some concrete results: a few Boeing orders, some quietly advanced chip export licenses, and several agricultural and trade commitments. These will all be packaged as diplomatic victories. But what deserves real attention this week is not these superficial outcomes, but the composition of the delegation itself.

Let's look at who is on this plane and what each of them needs to obtain from Beijing.

Elon Musk: The Shanghai Factory Remains Tesla's Lifeline

Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory began production in 2019. By 2026, this factory contributes nearly half of Tesla's global vehicle production. In the first quarter alone, this single base delivered 213,000 vehicles. Musk's investment in the Shanghai production system amounts to tens of billions of dollars, including a multi-billion dollar gigafactory and a $200 million Megapack energy storage facility.

The Chinese market accounts for roughly a quarter of Tesla's revenue. Over the past two years, Musk has repeatedly warned on X platform about the risks of authoritarian states and the inevitability of US-China decoupling. But this week, he boarded Air Force One for Beijing, with one of his core objectives being to ensure the continued stable operation of the Shanghai factory.

This is precisely the contradiction Musk must confront: one of the most public critics of China within the US business community, yet simultaneously one of the American CEOs most dependent on Beijing's policy environment. This contradiction is no longer just a matter of posture in the court of public opinion; it is a practical issue requiring him to be in Beijing, in front of Xi Jinping and the cameras, to address.

Tim Cook: One Last China Diplomacy Before the End of His Tenure

Cook is set to retire on September 1st, with John Ternus succeeding him as Apple CEO. For Cook, this trip to China is likely his last major diplomatic engagement as CEO, and at this very moment, he must handle the most difficult-to-explain part of Apple's story.

Over the past five years, Cook has consistently emphasized to Congress, shareholders, and the media that Apple is moving iPhone production out of China. This claim is not without basis. Today, most iPhones sold in the US market are assembled in India. In May 2025 alone, Foxconn invested $1.5 billion in its Indian subsidiary.

Diversification is happening. But the problem lies with the rest of the world outside the US market.

iPhones sold by Apple to the other approximately 200 countries and regions remain heavily reliant on the Chinese assembly ecosystem. This means that even if Apple has begun to shift parts of its supply chain, its global supply system remains deeply embedded in China's manufacturing network.

This week, as Cook sits in Chinese government buildings, his real task is not to prove Apple has moved beyond China, but to ensure this yet-to-be-completed supply chain transition can continue to operate stably, at least long enough to pass this problem on to the next CEO.

Jensen Huang: The Man Trump Personally Called to Board the Plane

Jensen Huang was not originally on the delegation list. He had planned to skip the trip because his presence might trigger a new round of scrutiny within the Republican party over NVIDIA's chip sales to China. On Tuesday morning, Trump personally called Huang, asking him to join the delegation. Less than 24 hours later, Huang was flying to Alaska to board Air Force One.

The core reason Trump needed Huang on the scene was the H200 chip issue.

NVIDIA's H200 AI accelerator was banned from sale to China during the Biden administration, subsequently replaced by the performance-capped H20. But the H20 was restricted again in April 2025, causing NVIDIA to take a $5.5 billion impairment charge. Late in 2025, Trump approved the re-export of H200 chips to China, subjecting them to a 25% tariff levied by US Customs. Beijing, in turn, privately advised customers to halt purchases.

Six months have passed since the White House gave the green light, but not a single H200 chip has been delivered to a Chinese buyer. During this period, NVIDIA's market share in China has plummeted from 95% to near zero.

Therefore, Jensen Huang's presence in Beijing this week represents one of the most critical corporate negotiations of the entire visit. He is the only person on both sides of the table who truly understands the boundaries of chip technology: which chips can be sold, which technologies cannot be released, and how to maintain revenue from the Chinese market without providing China with the computational foundation to fully leapfrog NVIDIA.

The Treasury Secretary cannot articulate this calculus, nor can Trump. The person who truly understands the technological boundaries and commercial costs is Jensen Huang. In other words, in this negotiation, he is the key stakeholder, while the President is more like the person who brought him into the room.

Larry Fink: Managing $11 Trillion in Assets, Yet Still Stuck on China Licenses

BlackRock's assets under management surpassed $11 trillion in 2024 and have continued to grow since. Larry Fink's business layout within China has long been a focal point of US political controversy.

In 2023, the US House Select Committee on China investigated BlackRock and MSCI, accusing them of directing US investor funds towards certain Chinese companies blacklisted for alleged military or human rights issues.

Following this, BlackRock closed its offshore China equity fund, and its China head, Xiaodong Tang, resigned. During the same period, several of BlackRock's onshore China funds also incurred losses.

Fink boarded this plane this week because if BlackRock wants to maintain its position as the world's largest asset manager by 2035, obtaining onshore China licenses is almost an unavoidable path. And these licenses are held by Beijing.

The same congressional committee that investigated him three years ago is closely watching this visit. He needs to secure enough from Beijing to justify the commercial viability of remaining in the Chinese market, without allowing outsiders to perceive that he sacrificed US national security interests for market access.

Among the entire delegation, Fink may have the narrowest eye of the needle to pass through.

Kelly Ortberg: The Boeing CEO Waiting Nearly a Decade for Chinese Orders

Since Trump's 2017 visit to China, during which Boeing secured a purchase commitment worth over $37 billion for 300 aircraft, it has not received any truly significant orders from China.

The 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, the pandemic, the trade war, and Boeing's own prolonged production crisis collectively led to a nearly decade-long freeze on Chinese orders.

Reports indicate that the deal on the table this week might include 500 737 MAX jets and approximately 100 wide-body aircraft. If finalized, this would become one of the largest single aircraft orders in Boeing's history. Ortberg himself acknowledged in an interview with Reuters last month that Boeing was relying on the White House to push this order through, and that the deal was partly held up by tariff disputes over engine spare parts.

In the first four months of 2026, Boeing secured 284 net orders, its best start to a year since 2014. However, the company's production capacity and delivery pace remain under pressure.

A mega-order from China might not immediately change Boeing's 2026 financial guidance, but it would be enough to revive market valuation of the company's stock and provide Ortberg with the long-awaited operational validation from the board. He is on this plane because Boeing has waited nine years and cannot return empty-handed.

David Solomon: The Gatekeeper of Goldman Sachs' Wholly-Owned China Business

Goldman Sachs gained full control of its China securities business in 2021, becoming one of the few US financial institutions with a wholly-owned onshore securities operation in China.

For Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, the core objective of this trip to Beijing is to ensure this license continues to hold practical commercial value. Over the past three years, China's regulatory environment for foreign financial institutions has tightened, making growth prospects for foreign banks in onshore investment banking, asset management, and wealth management more uncertain.

Onshore investment banking, asset management, and wealth management businesses targeting Chinese clients are crucial directions for Goldman Sachs' long-term revenue strategy. If Beijing decides foreign banks are no longer suitable for entering key areas, Goldman Sachs' strategic path built around the Chinese market over the past 15 years would face a significant reassessment.

Solomon's task in Beijing this week is to ensure this reassessment does not occur.

Stephen Schwarzman: The Business Politician Connecting Washington and Beijing for 20 Years

Schwarzman is one of the most seasoned business-political figures in the delegation. Blackstone's assets under management surpassed $1.3 trillion in the first quarter of 2026, making it the first alternative asset manager to reach this scale.

He founded the Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, attempting to cultivate bridge-builders between China and the US, similar to the Rhodes Scholarship. For many years, Schwarzman has publicly advocated that the future of US-China relations is more likely to involve coexisting spheres of influence rather than outright confrontation.

He has spent 20 years cultivating relationships with China's top leadership, a resource most other members of the delegation lack.

Schwarzman's value on this trip lies not in what he can directly obtain from Beijing, but in what he can privately tell Trump: how Xi Jinping will interpret the atmosphere, which concessions are possible, and which conditions will not cause either side to lose face.

In a sense, he is the closest figure to a Kissinger among the US delegation. More importantly, he is the only one on this plane who has long treated the US-China relationship as an investment thesis, not a quarterly issue.

Jane Fraser: The Citigroup CEO Still Waiting for a China License

Citigroup has exited its early joint venture arrangements in China and has been awaiting Beijing's approval for a full securities brokerage license. However, this application has yet to materialize.

Simultaneously, Citigroup is also embroiled in a dispute with a Zhejiang fuel company. Fraser is on this trip because Citigroup's onshore China strategy remains stuck at the doorstep, and she needs Chinese regulators to advance this long-stalled license application.

Under the current US-China confrontation landscape, Citigroup is one of the most squeezed US financial institutions. Mastercard, Visa, and Citigroup are all vying for payment and capital market access, which remains under Beijing's control.

Among the major financial institution CEOs on the trip, Fraser has the least leverage at the negotiating table, but likely has the most to gain.

Other Companies on the Plane

The delegation also includes executives from Meta, Mastercard, Visa, Micron, Illumina, Cargill, Coherent, and GE Aerospace. Each faces different issues, but the underlying logic is strikingly similar: all depend, to varying degrees, on markets, licenses, supply chains, or regulatory resources controlled by Beijing.

Mastercard and Visa want payment access. Micron hopes to lift export restrictions on memory chips. Illumina has been placed on China's "Unreliable Entity List". Cargill needs Chinese soybean orders. GE Aerospace provides engines for Boeing aircraft that China might purchase.

These companies are in the delegation because Beijing controls critical resources they will find difficult to replace in the next five years.

The Common Thread: American Corporate Dependence on China

Eight CEOs, corresponding to eight different forms of Chinese dependence.

Each of them boarded Air Force One this week because their respective companies have, over the past few decades, developed a structure highly dependent on the Chinese market or Chinese supply chains. Market access, regulatory permits, manufacturing ecosystems, order commitments, and policy signals are no longer just growth options for these companies; they are increasingly becoming strategic necessities.

And the person holding the keys to all of this is the one they flew halfway across the world to meet.

Since around 2010, the American corporate class has been constructing a narrative: that they can operate above the fray of ordinary political governance. Founders speak directly to users, boards often endorse CEO decisions, and regulators are always playing catch-up to already transformed business models.

Many institutions within the US have tried to challenge this narrative, with limited success.

Over the past 20 years, the Senate has summoned these CEOs time and again, but rarely managed to get them all at the same table on the same day. Antitrust investigations often drag on for years, by which time the technological cycle has already shifted. While many Americans watch congressional hearings on YouTube, few can articulate which piece of legislation truly changed the industry landscape as a result.

But Beijing has achieved something different: it has brought these American corporate leaders halfway across the world to sit at the same conference table, under China's schedule, in China's city, within China's protocol system.

This is the truly alarming part of this week. The leverage capable of convening the American power structure no longer resides exclusively within the US political system. At least at this moment, it resides in Beijing, and it is being publicly displayed.

By 2026, the most binding force on US corporate behavior may no longer be just congressional hearings in Washington, judicial investigations, or regulatory agencies, but the power of market exclusion wielded by the Chinese regulatory state.

This leverage is simple, but also effective: access, or lose access.

After the Summit, the Real Changes Won't Be Written Into the Joint Statement

This visit will end on Friday. At that point, both sides will likely release a joint statement and announce some concrete results regarding Boeing orders, agricultural purchases, and some forms of industrial cooperation.

US media might interpret these results as proof of pragmatic engagement; Chinese media will view them as evidence of China's continued central position in the global economy. Neither narrative is entirely wrong, but both likely miss the structural change truly on display this week.

What truly matters is that the American corporate class has publicly acknowledged that the key decisions affecting their revenue and growth trajectories for the next decade are increasingly made in a room presided over by Xi Jinping.

These CEOs on Air Force One are the first concentrated demonstration of this model. In the future, any American company still hoping for exposure to the Chinese market will likely have to come to Beijing in a similar fashion and accept similar conditions.

The imagery on the tarmac was not just a display of American power. It showed: who has the ability to convene American power, and, when necessary, make it cross the Pacific Ocean to come before them.

While Washington is still explaining why this power shift cannot possibly happen, the leverage has already quietly moved.

Whether the outside world is willing to admit it or not, the new boardroom is in Beijing.

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