Trump’s AI lunch included everyone except Apple

When President Donald Trump gathered executives from the world’s most powerful technology companies at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the future of artificial intelligence, one company was noticeably absent: Apple.

Neither Chairman Tim Cook nor his successor as CEO, John Ternus, were in attendance, while the heads of every other tech mega-cap — and many other companies — had lunch with Trump.

Apple did not respond to CNBC’s questions about the meeting, nor did the White House.

Social media was buzzing with speculation that Apple wasn’t invited because the company was behind in AI.

Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner, a major Silicon Valley investor and Trump ally during the second term, called Apple’s absence “nothing good” in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday.

“I can assure you they are very aware of all of this and I suspect they agree with all of this,” Gerstner said.

Cook, as Apple’s public face to government officials around the world, was at the White House less than a week ago, when he attended Trump’s state dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Gerstner pointed out.

Cook stepped down as Apple CEO in September, handing over to hardware specialist Ternus.

As part of the transition, Apple noted that Cook would continue to “engage with policymakers around the world” as the company’s executive chairman. His new role was highlighted last week at the state dinner with Xi.

Over the years, Cook has spent time maintaining a good relationship with Trump. He made more than 10 public appearances at events during the president’s second term, including Trump’s inauguration, in the Oval Office, in Davos and at state dinners on several continents. He attended the screening of “Melania” at the White House.

Throughout his dealings with Trump over the past two years, Cook has remained on message, focused on Apple’s manufacturing interests and trade issues, at a time when its products could be subject to tariffs. The company has given the Trump administration victories on issues like U.S. investment and jobs, while trying to stave off Trump’s long-held desire to see the company make iPhones in the United States.

More recently, Apple has reportedly sought to use memory chips made in China as prices soar around the world, but this requires licensing. Commerce Secretary Lutnick said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that “the Trump administration is not in favor of this.”

Gerstner, in his CNBC interview, said the lunch attendees were companies that were “really pushing the boundaries when it comes to model development.”

It’s not Apple.

The iPhone makers’ in-house models are smaller and more efficient than the so-called “frontier” models developed by OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which were represented. Apple Foundation models are primarily designed to run on Apple silicon inside iPhones and Mac computers. They run parts of Siri, while the OpenAI and Anthropic models heavily use Nvidiachip-based chip clusters.

Apple is a consumer company, while most of the AI ​​competition in frontier labs takes place within the enterprise. Apple partners with Google to develop its models. Its capital expenditures are tiny compared to Google’s sums, Microsoft, MetaAnd Amazon invest.

While some investors worry about Apple falling behind in AI, the market increasingly views it as a hedge against other investment-intensive tech names. And the company just launched a new AI-powered Siri earlier, to mostly positive reviews.

Apple’s stock is up 22.5% so far in 2026, outpacing the Nasdaq and nearly all of its mega-cap peers other than Nvidia, which is up roughly the same amount.

Although Apple heavily touts the power of AI and its role in the future of technology, the company’s executives have been mostly absent from the public debate over AI safety or alignment, which were the main topics of Trump’s lunch.

No one at Apple has written long manifestos like those of OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft and others.

As part of Tuesday’s meeting with Trump, the White House and leading AI companies signed an agreement committing industry players to take various security measures. After the meeting, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Greg Brockman, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei all signed the document.

Cook has said repeatedly over the years that Apple is more likely to publicly weigh in on a policy that “somehow intersects with our company’s concerns.” Apple doesn’t deal with border alignment issues.

“If it doesn’t cross over — if it’s something where we would just be another voice and don’t have a unique perspective to bring — then we don’t say anything,” Cook said in a 2021 interview with DealBook.

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