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

Author: Mustufa Khan

Translation: Peggy

Editor's Note: Beyond the bilateral meeting between President Trump and President Xi Jinping on this Trump's visit to China, the list of accompanying American corporate executives deserves greater attention: Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jensen Huang, Larry Fink, along with heads from Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Citigroup, and other companies are all part of the delegation.

Why are these CEOs coming? The reasons are not complicated. Tesla needs the Chinese market and its Shanghai factory; Apple needs to maintain its supply chain in China; Nvidia needs to reopen the Chinese AI chip market; Boeing is awaiting large orders from China; and Wall Street institutions care about licenses, asset management, and capital market access. They belong to different industries, but all point to the same reality: for many top American companies, China remains a market, production base, and regulatory gateway that cannot be easily replaced.

Therefore, this article is not really about the spectacle of a diplomatic visit, nor about specific orders that might be secured. It is about the structural dependence of American companies on the Chinese market.

Below is the original text:

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

Some observers are calling this a summit.

But judging by the signals emanating from the scene, it feels more like a board meeting of global commercial power: China acts as the chairperson presiding over the meeting, Trump is one of the directors, and the accompanying American CEOs are like a business team brought in to endorse the final deal.

For 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 structural changes that are truly underway.

The military band on the tarmac, the uniformly dressed Chinese children, and the series of meticulously arranged welcoming ceremonies are easily interpreted as standard diplomatic pomp. But what is truly important 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 China holds the initiative in setting the agenda, while Trump is more often responding to a predetermined plan rather than actively shaping it. Trump arrives; China receives. This alone constitutes the most significant 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 uses more grandiose public narratives to compensate for weak bargaining chips. The U.S. President flies to Beijing, flanked by the most influential current crop of American corporate leaders, and before his plane 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 deserves attention this week is not these surface-level outcomes, but the composition of the delegation itself.

Consider who is on that plane, and what each needs from Beijing.

Elon Musk: The Shanghai Factory Remains Tesla's Lifeline

Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory started production in 2019. By 2026, this factory has contributed 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 $2+ billion superfactory and a $200 million Megapack energy storage plant.

The Chinese market accounts for roughly a quarter of Tesla's revenue. Over the past two years, Musk has frequently warned on X about the risks of authoritarian states and the inevitability of U.S.-China decoupling. Yet 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 face: one of the most vocal public critics of China in the American business community, simultaneously one of the U.S. CEOs most deeply dependent on Beijing's policy environment. This contradiction is no longer just a matter of stance in the court of public opinion; it is a real-world issue requiring him to come to Beijing, face Xi Jinping, and manage it before the cameras.

Tim Cook: A Last Act of Chinese Diplomacy Before Retirement

Cook is set to retire on September 1st, handing over the CEO role at Apple to John Ternus. For Cook, this trip to China is likely the last major diplomatic engagement of his tenure as CEO, and at this very moment, he must address the most difficult part of Apple's story to fully explain.

For the past five years, Cook has emphasized to Congress, shareholders, and the media that Apple is moving iPhone production out of China. This claim is not unfounded. Today, most iPhones sold in the U.S. market are assembled in India. In May 2025 alone, Foxconn poured $1.5 billion into its Indian subsidiary.

Diversification is happening. But the problem lies with the rest of the world, outside the U.S. market.

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

This week, sitting in Chinese government buildings, what Cook truly needs to accomplish is not to prove Apple has escaped China, but to ensure the continued stable operation of this yet-to-be-fully-transitioned supply chain system for long enough to hand this problem over to the next CEO.

Jensen Huang: The Person Trump Personally 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 might trigger renewed scrutiny within the Republican party regarding 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.

Trump needed Huang on site, primarily because of the H200 chip issue.

Nvidia's H200 AI accelerator was banned from sale to China under the Biden administration, replaced by the less powerful H20. But the H20 was restricted again in April 2025, leading Nvidia to take a $5.5 billion impairment charge. At the end of 2025, Trump approved the re-export of H200 to China, subjecting it to a 25% tariff collected by U.S. Customs. Beijing, meanwhile, privately informed customers to pause purchases.

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

Therefore, Jensen Huang's presence in Beijing this week constitutes 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 chips: which chips can be sold, which technologies cannot be relinquished, how to maintain revenue from the Chinese market without granting China a computational foundation sufficient to surpass Nvidia entirely.

The Treasury Secretary cannot negotiate this number, and neither 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 protagonist, while the President is more like the person who brought him into the room.

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

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 political controversy in the United States.

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

Subsequently, BlackRock closed its offshore China equity fund, and its China head, Tang Xiaodong, resigned. Concurrently, 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 an onshore license in China 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 outcomes from Beijing to justify the commercial rationale of remaining in the Chinese market, while simultaneously preventing the perception that he sacrificed U.S. national security interests for market access.

Throughout this entire trip, Fink might have to pass through the narrowest eye of the needle.

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

Since Trump's 2017 visit to China yielded purchase commitments for 300 aircraft worth over $37 billion, 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 prolonged production crisis have collectively frozen Chinese orders for nearly a decade.

Reports suggest that the deal on the table this week could include 500 737 MAX aircraft and approximately 100 wide-body jets. If realized, it would be one of the largest single aircraft orders in Boeing's history. Ortberg also acknowledged in an interview with Reuters last month that Boeing is relying on the White House to push this order through, a transaction previously hampered, in part, by engine spare parts being caught up in tariff disputes.

In the first four months of 2026, Boeing secured 284 net orders, its best start to the 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 earnings guidance, but it would be enough to re-energize the market's 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 been waiting for nine years and cannot return empty-handed.

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

Goldman Sachs secured full ownership of its China securities business in 2021, becoming one of the few U.S. 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 practical commercial value. Over the past three years, China's regulatory environment for foreign financial institutions has tightened, making the growth prospects for foreign banks in onshore investment banking, asset management, and wealth management more uncertain.

Onshore investment banking, asset management, and wealth management services for Chinese clients form a crucial part of Goldman Sachs' long-term revenue strategy. If Beijing decides foreign banks are no longer suitable for key sectors, 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 that this reassessment does not happen.

Stephen Schwarzman: The Commercial Statesman Linking Washington and Beijing for Two Decades

Stephen Schwarzman is one of the most seasoned commercial-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 milestone.

He founded the Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, aiming to cultivate bridge leaders between China and the U.S., similar to the Rhodes Scholarship model. For years, Schwarzman has publicly argued that the future for the U.S. and China is more likely a coexistence of "spheres of influence" rather than outright confrontation.

He has spent 20 years cultivating relationships with the Chinese 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 interprets the atmosphere in the room, which concessions are possible, and which conditions will not cause a loss of face for either side.

In a sense, he is the closest member of the U.S. delegation to being a "Kissinger-like figure." More importantly, he is the only one on that plane who has consistently treated the U.S.-China relationship as an investment proposition, not a quarterly problem to be managed.

Jane Fraser: The Citigroup CEO Still Waiting for 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 fuel company. Fraser is accompanying the delegation because Citigroup's onshore China strategy remains stalled at the threshold, and she needs Chinese regulators to advance this long-pending license application.

Given the current U.S.-China tensions, Citigroup is one of the most squeezed American financial institutions. Mastercard, Visa, and Citigroup are all vying for payment and capital market access, and these access rights remain controlled by Beijing.

Among the major financial institution CEOs, Fraser wields the least leverage at the negotiating table, but her needs are likely the greatest.

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 are, to some extent, dependent on markets, permits, supply chains, or regulatory resources controlled by Beijing.

Mastercard and Visa seek payment access. Micron hopes to relax 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 the Boeing aircraft that China might purchase.

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

The Common Thread: U.S. Corporate Dependence on China

8 CEOs, corresponding to 8 different forms of dependence on China.

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

And the person holding all these keys is the one they are flying halfway around the world to meet.

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

Many institutions within the U.S. have attempted to challenge this narrative, but with limited effect.

For 20 years, the Senate has subpoenaed these CEOs repeatedly but has rarely managed to get them all at the same table on the same day. Antitrust investigations stretch on for years, often concluding long after the technology cycle has shifted. Many Americans watch hearings on YouTube but struggle to name a single piece of legislation that genuinely changed the industry landscape as a result.

But Beijing has achieved something else: it has brought these American corporate leaders halfway around the world to sit together at one 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 establishment no longer resides entirely within the U.S. political system. At this very moment, it exists in Beijing, and it is being displayed publicly.

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

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

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

This visit will conclude on Friday. By then, both sides will likely issue a joint statement and announce some specific outcomes related to Boeing orders, agricultural purchases, and certain industrial cooperation.

American media might interpret these results as proof of pragmatic engagement; Chinese media will cite them as evidence of China's centrality in the global economy. Neither narrative will be entirely wrong, but both risk missing the structural shift truly revealed 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 presided over by Xi Jinping.

These CEOs on Air Force One represent the first concentrated display of this pattern. 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 scene on the tarmac was not merely a display of American power. It showcased: who has the ability to convene American power, and when necessary, bring it across the Pacific to their doorstep.

While Washington continues to explain why this power shift cannot possibly be happening, the leverage has already silently moved.

Whether outsiders are willing to admit it or not, the new boardroom is in Beijing.

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