Elon Musk and Jensen Huang headed to China on Air Force One.
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The Tesla and Nvidia CEOs are part of the delegation accompanying President Donald Trump to Beijing, which touched down around 8 p.m. local time on Wednesday.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump named 10 other business leaders who were traveling with him, too. Although in an X post during the flight, Musk said he and Huang were the only ones on board the presidential airplane.
Musk also said that he was using a Starlink internet connection, allowing him to post from over the Pacific Ocean.
It comes as Tesla is losing ground to Chinese electric-vehicle companies. In 2025, BYD sold more battery EVs than Tesla for the first time.
Musk was the biggest donor in the 2024 election, spending at least $277 million supporting Trump and other Republican candidates. They came to loggerheads last summer, as Musk spoke out against the “Big Beautiful Bill” and floated the idea of starting a new party.
Musk was on board Air Force One when it departed Joint Base Andrews, according to a White House pool report. Huang joined during a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska.
The Nvidia boss was pictured wearing a backpack and standing on the tarmac, in an X post shared by the New York Post’s White House correspondent.
Huang has long been trying to get permission for Nvidia to sell its artificial intelligence chips to China.
Other chip company CEOs on the trip included Sanjay Mehrotra of Micron and Cristiano Amon of Qualcomm, Trump said.
In 2023, China restricted the use of some Micron chips in critical infrastructure, citing national security.
Trump said that other business leaders joining him on the trip included Apple’s Tim Cook, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg, Cargill’s Brian Sikes, Citi’s Jane Fraser, GE Aerospace’s Larry Culp, and David Solomon of Goldman Sachs.
China is a huge and growing market for commercial airplanes, so Ortberg may be hoping to work on a deal with the country’s airlines. Airbus, Boeing’s main rival, last month signed a $21.4 billion deal with China Southern Airlines and its subsidiary Xiamen Airlines for more than 100 jets.
Last May, Ortberg accompanied Trump on a trip to Qatar, where Qatar Airways agreed to buy up to 210 Boeing jets, which the White House said was worth $96 billion.
In Tuesday night’s post, Trump said he would ask President Xi Jinping to “open up” China so the business leaders “can work their magic, and help bring the People’s Republic [of China] to an even higher level!”
