Associated Press: Trump will host top tech CEOs except Musk at a White House dinner

President Donald Trump will host a high-powered list of tech CEOs for a dinner at the White House on Thursday night.

The guest list is set to include Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a dozen other executives from the biggest artificial intelligence and tech firms, according to the White House.

One notable absence from the guest list is Elon Musk, once a close ally of Trump, whom the Republican president tasked with running the government-slashing Department of Government Efficiency. Musk had a public breakup with Trump earlier this year.

The dinner will be held in the Rose Garden, where Trump recently paved over the grassy lawn and set up tables, chairs and umbrellas that look strikingly similar to the outdoor setup at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

“The Rose Garden Club at the White House is the hottest place to be in Washington, or perhaps the world,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement. “The president looks forward to welcoming top business, political, and tech leaders for this dinner and the many dinners to come on the new, beautiful Rose Garden patio.”

The event will follow a meeting of the White House’s new Artificial Intelligence Education task force, which first lady Melania Trump will chair.

“During this primitive stage, it is our duty to treat AI as we would our own children — empowering, but with watchful guidance,” she said in a statement. “We are living in a moment of wonder, and it is our responsibility to prepare America’s children.”

At least some of the attendees at the president’s Thursday’s dinner are expected to participate in the task force meeting, which aims to develop AI education for American youths.

The White House confirmed that the guest list for the dinner is also set to include Google founder Sergey Brin and CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and founder Greg Brockman, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Blue Origin CEO David Limp, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, TIBCO Software chairman Vivek Ranadive, Palantir executive Shyam Sankar, Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang and Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman.

Isaacman was an associate of Musk whom Trump nominated to lead NASA, only to revoke the nomination around the time of his breakup with Musk. Trump cited the revocation of the nomination as one of the reasons Musk was upset with him and called Isaacman “totally a Democrat.”

The dinner was first reported Wednesday by The Hill.

As my little brother would have said many years ago, “Musk is cut!”

https://apnews.com/article/trump-tech-ceos-white-house-rose-garden-e234e719d96d299d2f670037f9505a9f

Raw Story: ‘Grandmother who won’t stop talking’: GOP aides say Stephen Miller won’t hang up

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security Advisor, just won’t get off the phone, according to a new report.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday night that Trump 2.0 has Miller’s fingerprints all over it, with Miller “emerg[ing] as a singular figure in the second Trump administration, wielding more power than almost any other White House staffer in recent memory—and eager to circumvent legal limitations on his agenda.”

Miller has drafted or edited each of Trump’s signed executive orders, according to the report, giving him considerable influence over Trump’s second term. This comes after the president refused to give him a leading role at the Department of Homeland Security, reportedly telling aides he didn’t see Miller as leadership material, according to the report.

Also of note — Miller appears to be getting under the skin of GOP aides on Capitol Hill who say they can’t get him off the phone.

https://www.rawstory.com/stephen-miller-2672408339

More here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ar-AA1H8sPE

And here:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stephen-miller-is-driving-congressional-aides-crazy-with-non-stop-calls

OBOXMA: It seems Zuckerberg now wants US military contracts

While Meta is mired in antitrust proceedings threatening to lead to its dismantling, Mark Zuckerberg is desperately tightening his ties with the Trump administration, which he has been trying to seduce for several months in the hope of securing highly lucrative military contracts.

Mark Zuckerberg has made one strategic rapprochement gesture after another towards Donald Trump, combining financial initiatives, internal decisions and political signals: a million-dollar donation at his inauguration in January, a meeting at Mar-a-Lago, the dismantling of Facebook’s fact-checking program, the removal of Meta’s diversity team, the appointment of people close to Trump to the board of directors, and the purchase of a house in Washington D.C.

Move over, F’Elon and Jeff! Mark Zuckerberg — the guy who stole Facebook from his Harvard schoolmate — wants a piece of your pie.

USA Today: ‘I run the country and the world,’ Donald Trump says in Atlantic interview

President Donald Trump declared that he runs the world as he reflected on what’s different during his second White House go around in an interview with The Atlantic magazine.

“The first time, I had two things to do ‒ run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” Trump said in the interview, published April 28. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”

Sorry, Trumpsy dearest. God runs the world. You’re here only to scrub the toilets.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/i-run-the-country-and-the-world-donald-trump-says-in-atlantic-interview/ar-AA1DMR56

Daily Beast: Zuckerberg’s Suck-Up to Trump Does Him No Good at All

Mark Zuckerberg thought he’d done everything in his power to make the government’s antitrust case against Meta go away.

He’d paid $1 million into Donald Trump’s inaugural fund. He’d settled a lawsuit the president launched over being blackballed by Facebook for a whopping $25 million. He sat in Trump’s box at the inauguration and shuttled between the White House and Mar-a-Lago to ingratiate himself with his new friend.

And what did he get for all his trouble? A deafening silence from the one person who could help him as the days ticked down to the antitrust trial that threatens to tear his company apart.

King Donald must have lost track of where all the payola was coming from — guess it sucks to be Zuck!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/zuckerberg-s-suck-up-to-trump-does-him-no-good-at-all/ar-AA1D36oh