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

Original author: Mustufa Khan

Compiled by: Peggy

Editor's note: During this visit of Trump to China, beyond the China-US leaders' meeting itself, the list of accompanying American business executives is more noteworthy: Musk, Cook, Huang Renxun, Larry Fink, along with leaders from Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Citigroup, and other companies, are part of the delegation.

Why are these CEOs here? The reason isn't 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 waiting for large orders from China, and Wall Street institutions are focused on business licenses, assets management, and capital market access. They belong to different industries, but they all point to the same reality: For many top U.S. companies, China remains an irreplaceable market, production base, and regulatory gateway.

Therefore, this article is not really discussing the pageantry of a diplomatic visit or a few potential orders, but rather 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 business CEOs. The business scale behind this delegation is astonishing: the combined net worth of these entrepreneurs is approximately $1.07 trillion, surpassing the GDP of most economies globally except for a few countries.

Observers have dubbed this visit a summit.

But judging by the signals released on the ground, it looks more like a board meeting of global commercial power: China is the chairman 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.

Over the past 70 years, the core narrative of American power is being repriced. Many observers, however, are still focusing on protocols, slogans, and short-term transactions, failing to see the underlying structural changes.

The brass band on the tarmac, uniformly dressed Chinese children, and a series of meticulously designed welcome ceremonies are easily interpreted as standard diplomatic spectacle. But what truly matters isn't these scenes themselves, but who is setting the pace of this visit.

Almost every agenda item in the public schedule of this visit was arranged by the Chinese side. This means the initiative lies with China, and Trump is more responding to a pre-set agenda than actively shaping it. Trump arrives, China receives. This one fact alone is sufficient to constitute the most important political and commercial signal of the week.

A country with real leverage typically doesn't announce what it wants publicly before entering the meeting room; conversely, a country whose leverage is waning often uses more high-profile public narratives to compensate for its lack of bargaining chips. The President of the United States flies to Beijing, flanked by the most influential CEOs of American companies, and before he even lands, press releases have already listed every key item on the agenda.

By Friday night, this visit will likely produce some concrete results: a few Boeing orders, some quietly progressing chip export licenses, and several agricultural and trade commitments. These will all be packaged as diplomatic victories. But what’s truly worth watching this week isn't these surface-level outcomes, but the composition of the delegation itself.

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 started production in 2019. By 2026, this factory 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-level 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 platform X about the risks of authoritarian states and the inevitability of US-China decoupling. But this week, he got on Air Force One headed for Beijing, with one of his core goals being to ensure the stable operation of the Shanghai factory continues.

This is precisely the contradiction Musk must face: he is one of the most publicly critical figures of China in the American business community, yet also one of the American CEOs most deeply dependent on Beijing's policy environment. This contradiction is no longer just a posturing issue in the court of public opinion but a real problem requiring him to be in Beijing, in front of Xi Jinping and the cameras, to manage.

Tim Cook: The final China diplomacy before the end of his term

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 event as CEO. At this 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 unfounded. 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 rest of the roughly 200 countries and regions still heavily rely on the Chinese assembly system. This means that even though Apple has begun shifting parts of its supply chain, its global supply system remains deeply embedded in China's manufacturing network.

This week, as Cook sits in a Chinese government building, what he truly needs to accomplish isn't proving Apple has gotten rid of China, but ensuring the stable operation of this supply chain system that has yet to be fully relocated, at least long enough to hand the problem over to the next CEO.

Jensen Huang: The person Trump personally called to get on the plane

Jensen Huang wasn't originally on the delegation list. He had planned to skip the trip, as 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 site is the H200 chip issue.

Nvidia's H200 AI accelerator was banned for sale to China during the Biden administration, replaced by the performance-weakened H20. However, the H20 was restricted again in April 2025, forcing Nvidia to take a $5.5 billion impairment charge. At the end of 2025, Trump approved the re-export of H200 to China, subject to a 25% tariff collected by US Customs. Beijing, for its part, privately notified customers to suspend purchases.

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

Therefore, Jensen Huang's appearance in Beijing this week represents one of the most critical corporate negotiations during 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 loosened, and how to maintain Chinese market revenue without giving China sufficient computing power to completely surpass Nvidia.

The Treasury Secretary cannot negotiate this number, and neither can Trump. The person who genuinely understands the technological boundaries and commercial costs is Jensen Huang. In other words, in this negotiation, he is the key stakeholder, and the President is more like the person who brought him into the room.

Larry Fink: Managing $11 trillion in assets, yet still unable to bypass Chinese licenses

BlackRock's assets under management exceeded $11 trillion in 2024 and have continued to grow. Larry Fink's business layout within China has long been at the center of political controversy in the US.

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

Fink got on this plane this week because if BlackRock wants to maintain its position as the world's largest asset manager by 2035, obtaining domestic licenses 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 watching this visit. He must secure enough from Beijing to prove the commercial viability of staying in the Chinese market; simultaneously, he must avoid the perception that he sacrificed US national security interests for market access.

Throughout the entire trip, Fink may have the narrowest needle to thread.

Kelly Ortberg: The Boeing CEO waiting nearly a decade for Chinese orders

Since Trump's 2017 visit to China secured 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, trade wars, and Boeing's own long-term production crisis have collectively frozen Chinese orders for nearly a decade.

Reports suggest the deal on the table this week could include 500 737 MAX jets and about 100 wide-body aircraft. If finalized, it could be one of the largest single aircraft orders in Boeing's history. Ortberg acknowledged in a Reuters interview last month that Boeing relies on the White House to push this deal through, and the transaction has been partly hampered by tariff disputes regarding 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 rhythm remain under pressure.

A mega-order from China might not immediately change Boeing's 2026 earnings guidance, but it would be enough to revitalize market valuation of the company's stock and provide Ortberg with the long-awaited operational validation sought by the board. He's 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 domestic securities operation in China.

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

Domestic investment banking, asset management, and wealth management services for Chinese clients are crucial pillars of Goldman Sachs' long-term revenue strategy. If Beijing determines that 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 significant reassessment.

What Solomon needs to do in Beijing this week is ensure this reassessment does not happen.

Stephen Schwarzman: The business statesman linking 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 the first quarter of 2026, making it the first alternative asset manager to reach this scale.

He founded Schwarzman Scholars at Tsinghua University in Beijing, aiming to cultivate bridge-building leaders between the US and China, similar to the Rhodes Scholarship. Over the years, Schwarzman has publicly advocated that the future is more likely to involve a coexistence of "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 what terms will not cause either side to lose face.

In a sense, he is the closest figure to a "Kissinger-like personality" on the American delegation. More importantly, he is the only one on this plane who has long treated the US-China relationship as an investment proposition rather than a quarterly issue.

Jane Fraser: The Citigroup CEO still waiting for Chinese licenses

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

Meanwhile, Citigroup is also involved in a dispute with a Zhejiang-based fuel company. Fraser is part of this delegation because Citigroup's onshore China strategy remains stalled at the entry point, and she needs Chinese regulators to advance this long-pending license application.

In the current context of US-China tensions, Citigroup is one of the most squeezed US financial institutions. Mastercard, Visa, and Citi are all vying for payment and capital market access, which remains in Beijing's hands.

Among the major financial institution CEOs, Fraser has the least leverage at the negotiating table but likely has the most to ask for.

Other companies on the plane

The delegation also includes executives from Meta, Mastercard, Visa, Micron, Illumina, Cargill, Coherent, and GE Aerospace. They face different issues, but the underlying logic is highly similar: they all depend to some extent on markets, licenses, supply chains, or regulatory resources controlled by Beijing.

Mastercard and Visa want payment access. Micron hopes for the lifting of memory chip export restrictions. 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 part of the delegation because Beijing controls critical resources that are hard for them to replace within the next five years.

Common Thread: American Corporate Dependence on China

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

Each of them boarded Air Force One this week because their respective companies have formed over the past decades a structure highly reliant on the Chinese market or supply chain. Chinese market access, regulatory approvals, 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 the keys to these things is exactly the person they are flying halfway around the world to meet.

Since around 2010, the American corporate class has built a narrative for itself: that it could operate above the friction of ordinary political governance. Founders speak directly to users, boards typically endorse CEO decisions, and regulators are always catching up to business models that have already morphed.

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

For 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 technology cycle has already shifted. Many Americans watch hearings on YouTube but struggle to name any piece of legislation that truly reshaped an industry as a result.

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

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

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.

After the summit ends, the real changes won't be written into the joint statement

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

US media might interpret these results as evidence of pragmatic engagement; Chinese media will frame them as proof of China retaining its central role in the global economy. Neither narrative will be entirely wrong, but both might miss the structural change 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 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 for exposure to the Chinese market will likely have to come to Beijing in a similar fashion and accept similar conditions.

The image on the tarmac was not merely a display of American power. It showed: 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 leverage has quietly moved.

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

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