Original Title: 8 CEOs on Air Force One just ended the American Power Narrative

Original Author: Mustufa Khan

Translation & Editing: Peggy

Editor's Note: Beyond the much-anticipated Trump-Xi meeting itself, what truly warrants attention during this visit is the list of accompanying American corporate executives: Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jensen Huang, Larry Fink, along with leaders from Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Citigroup, and others.

Why are these CEOs coming? The reasons are not complicated. Tesla needs the Chinese market and its Shanghai Gigafactory. Apple needs to maintain its Chinese supply chain. Nvidia needs to reopen the Chinese AI chip market. Boeing awaits large orders from China. Wall Street institutions are concerned about licenses, asset management, and capital market access. They belong to different industries, but collectively point to one reality: for many top American companies, China remains an irreplaceable market, production base, and regulatory gateway.

Therefore, this article does not truly discuss the pageantry of a diplomatic visit, nor any specific orders that might materialize. Instead, it focuses on the structural reliance of American companies on the Chinese market.

The following 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 have called this visit a summit.

But judging by the signals emanating from the scene, it felt more like a board meeting of global commercial power: China acting as the chairperson, Trump as one of the directors, and the accompanying US corporate CEOs resembling a business team brought in to endorse the final deal.

Over the past 70 years, the core narrative of American power is being repriced. Yet, many observers remain fixated on protocol, slogans, and short-term transactions, failing to see the structures that have truly changed.

The brass band on the tarmac, the uniformly dressed Chinese children, and the series of meticulously arranged welcoming ceremonies can easily be interpreted as standard diplomatic pageantry. But what truly matters isn't these images themselves, but who is setting the pace of this visit.

Every agenda item on the public schedule of this visit was almost entirely arranged by the Chinese side. This means the initiative in setting the agenda lies with China, while Trump is more in a position of responding to a predetermined agenda rather than actively shaping it. Trump arrives, China receives. This single fact alone is sufficient to constitute the most important political and commercial signal of the week.

A nation with genuine leverage typically doesn't reveal its demands publicly before entering the negotiation room. Conversely, a nation whose leverage is waning often compensates for weaker bargaining chips with more grandiose public narratives. The President of the United States flies to Beijing, flanked by some of the most influential American corporate CEOs, and before he even lands, press releases have already listed every key item on the agenda.

By Friday evening, this visit will likely produce some tangible results: a few Boeing orders, some quietly advanced chip export licenses, and several agricultural and trade commitments. These will be packaged as diplomatic victories. But what truly merits attention this week isn't these superficial outcomes, but the composition of the delegation itself.

Look at who is on this plane, and what each of them needs from Beijing.

Elon Musk: The Shanghai Gigafactory Remains Tesla's Lifeline

Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory began production in 2019. By 2026, this factory contributes nearly half of Tesla's global vehicle output. In the first quarter alone, this single base delivered 213,000 vehicles. Musk's investment in the Shanghai production system totals tens of billions of dollars, including a $2 billion-level Gigafactory and a $200 million Megapack energy storage plant.

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

This is precisely the contradiction Musk must confront: one of the most publicly vocal critics of China within the US business community is simultaneously one of the American CEOs most deeply dependent on Beijing's policy environment. This contradiction is no longer just a matter of public posture but a real-world issue requiring him to be in Beijing, face-to-face with Xi Jinping, and under the cameras.

Tim Cook: The Last China Diplomacy Before Retirement

Cook is set to retire on September 1st, with John Ternus succeeding him as Apple's CEO. For Cook, this trip to China is likely the last major diplomatic occasion within his tenure as CEO, and at this moment, he must address the part of Apple's story that is hardest to fully explain.

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 outside the US market.

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

This week, sitting in a Chinese government building, Cook's real task isn't to prove that Apple has broken free from China. It is to ensure the stability of this yet-to-be-completed supply chain transition, at least long enough to pass the problem to the next CEO.

Jensen Huang: The Person Trump Called to Get on the Plane

Jensen Huang was not originally on the delegation list. He had planned to skip the trip, as his presence could trigger renewed scrutiny within the Republican Party over Nvidia's chip sales to China. On Tuesday morning, Trump personally called Huang and asked him to join the delegation. Within 24 hours, Huang was on a flight to Alaska, boarding Air Force One.

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

Nvidia's H200 AI accelerator was banned for sale to China during the Biden administration and was replaced by the performance-capped H20. However, the H20 was restricted again in April 2025, leading Nvidia to take a $5.5 billion write-down. 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, informally advised customers to halt purchases.

Six months have passed since the White House greenlit the exports, yet not a single H200 has been delivered to Chinese buyers. During this period, Nvidia's market share in China plummeted from around 95% to nearly 0%.

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 either side of the table who truly understands the boundaries of chip technology: which chips can be sold, which technologies cannot be relinquished, and how to maintain revenue from the Chinese market without providing China with enough computational power to definitively surpass Nvidia.

This calculus cannot be negotiated by the Treasury Secretary, nor by Trump. The person who truly understands the technical limits and commercial costs is Jensen Huang. In other words, in this negotiation, he is the key party, while the President is more like the person who brought him into the room.

Larry Fink: Managing $11 Trillion in Assets, Yet Still Needing Chinese Licenses

BlackRock's assets under management surpassed $11 trillion in 2024 and have continued to grow since. Larry Fink's business footprint in 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.

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

Fink is on this plane this week because if BlackRock wants to maintain its position as the world's largest asset manager by 2035, obtaining onshore Chinese 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 monitoring this visit. He must secure enough results from Beijing to demonstrate the commercial rationale for staying in the Chinese market, yet must avoid creating the perception that he is sacrificing US national security interests for market access.

Throughout this trip, Fink might have the narrowest eye of the needle to thread.

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

Since securing purchase commitments for 300 aircraft valued at over $37 billion during Trump's 2017 visit to China, Boeing has not received any truly significant orders from China.

The two 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, the pandemic, the trade war, and Boeing's own protracted production crisis have collectively frozen Chinese orders for nearly a decade.

Reportedly, the deal on the table this week could include 500 737 MAX aircraft and approximately 100 widebody jets. If finalized, this would become one of the largest single aircraft orders in Boeing's history. Ortberg acknowledged in a Reuters interview last month that Boeing is relying on the White House to push this order through, a transaction previously hindered to some extent by a tariff dispute over engine spare parts.

In the first four months of 2026, Boeing recorded 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 alter Boeing's 2026 performance guidance, but it would be sufficient to reignite market valuation for 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 ownership 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 retains its actual commercial value. Over the past three years, China's regulatory environment for foreign financial institutions has tightened, making growth prospects in onshore investment banking, asset management, and wealth management more uncertain for foreign banks.

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

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

Stephen Schwarzman: The Business Statesman Bridging Washington and Beijing for Two Decades

Schwarzman is one of the most seasoned business-political figures in the delegation. Blackstone's assets under management surpassed $1.3 trillion in Q1 2026, making it the first alternative asset manager to reach that milestone.

He founded the Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, aiming to cultivate bridge-building leaders between China and the US, akin to the Rhodes Scholarship. For years, Schwarzman has publicly argued 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 that most other members of the delegation do not possess.

Schwarzman's value on this trip isn't what he can directly obtain from Beijing, but what he can privately tell Trump: how Xi Jinping interprets the atmosphere, what concessions are possible, and which conditions won't cause any side to lose face.

In a sense, he is the closest figure to a "Kissinger-like persona" within the US delegation. More importantly, he is the only person on that plane who has long treated the US-China relationship as an investment proposition, not a quarterly issue.

Jane Fraser: The Citigroup CEO Still Awaiting a Chinese License

Citigroup has exited its earlier joint venture arrangement in China and has been awaiting Beijing's approval for a wholly-owned securities brokerage license. However, this application has yet to be approved.

Simultaneously, Citigroup is involved in a dispute with a Zhejiang-based fuel company. Fraser is accompanying the delegation because Citigroup's onshore China strategy remains stalled at the gate, and she needs Chinese regulators to move forward on this long-pending license application.

Under the current US-China standoff, Citigroup is one of the most squeezed US financial institutions. Mastercard, Visa, and Citigroup are all competing for payment and capital market access, permissions still held by Beijing.

Among the major financial institution CEOs on this trip, Fraser likely has the least leverage at the negotiating table but potentially the greatest need.

Other Companies on the Plane

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

Mastercard and Visa want payment access. Micron seeks the lifting of memory chip export restrictions. Illumina has been placed on China's "Unreliable Entity List." Cargill needs Chinese soybean orders. GE Aerospace supplies engines for Boeing aircraft that China might purchase.

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

The Common Thread: Corporate America's Dependence on China

Eight CEOs, corresponding to eight different forms of dependence on China.

Each of them boarded Air Force One this week because their companies, over the past decades, have formed a structure deeply dependent on the Chinese market or Chinese supply chains. For these companies, Chinese market access, regulatory permits, manufacturing systems, order commitments, and policy signals are no longer just growth options but are increasingly strategic necessities.

And the key to all these things is held by the man they are flying halfway across the world to meet.

Since around 2010, the American corporate class has increasingly constructed a narrative for itself: that it could operate above the friction of ordinary political governance. Founders spoke directly to users, boards often backed CEO decisions, and regulators were always chasing already-evolving business models.

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

Over the past 20 years, the Senate has summoned these CEOs time and again, yet rarely managed to bring them all to the same table on the same day. Antitrust investigations often spanned years, only for the technology cycle to shift by the time they concluded. Many Americans watch hearings on YouTube, but few can name a single piece of legislation that truly reshaped the industry landscape as a result.

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

That is the truly sobering part of this week. The leverage capable of convening the American power class no longer resides entirely within the US political system. At least for this moment, it is in Beijing, and it is being publicly demonstrated.

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

This leverage is simple and effective: access, or lose access.

When the Summit Ends, the Real Changes Won't Be in the Joint Statement

This visit will conclude on Friday. By then, both sides are highly likely to issue a joint statement and announce some concrete results regarding Boeing orders, agricultural purchases, and some industrial cooperation.

US media might interpret these outcomes as proof of pragmatic engagement; Chinese media will present them as evidence of China's continued centrality in the global economy. Neither narrative is entirely wrong, but both might miss the structural change truly evident this week.

What truly matters is that the American corporate class has publicly acknowledged that the key decisions affecting their revenue and growth trajectory for the next decade increasingly occur in a room chaired by Xi Jinping.

The CEOs on Air Force One represent the first concentrated display of this pattern. In the future, any American company still hoping for access to the Chinese market will likely have to come to Beijing in a similar manner and accept similar conditions.

The scene on the tarmac is not merely a display of American power. It demonstrates: who has the ability to convene American power, and when needed, make it cross the Pacific Ocean to come before them.

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

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

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