White House Releases Guest List for State Dinner Honouring Xi Jinping

The White House has released the guest list for a state dinner hosted on Thursday by President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump in honour of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan.

The dinner brought together senior officials from both governments alongside prominent figures from business, finance, technology and media.

On the American side, Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance were listed, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his spouse, Jeanette Rubio, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Other administration figures included Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Attorney General Todd Blanche, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and National Intelligence Director Jay Clayton.

Also invited were U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, acting Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler. General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff were on the list as well.

The Chinese delegation included Cai Qi, chief of staff to Xi; Wang Yi, a member of the CPC Political Bureau Central Committee; Vice Premier He Lifeng; Zheng Shanjie, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission; Commerce Minister Wang Wentao; Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu; and Ambassador to the United States Xie Feng and his spouse, Wang Dan. Finance Minister Lan Fo'an, several assistant foreign ministers and other senior party and government officials were also named.

Family members of the president were present, including Ivanka Trump and her daughter Arabella Kushner, Eric Trump and his spouse Lara Trump, Tiffany Trump and her spouse Michael Boulos, and Viktor Knavs, the father of Melania Trump.

The guest list also featured a large contingent from the technology and corporate world, among them NVIDIA's Jensen Huang, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Apple's Tim Cook, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Google's Sundar Pichai, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Tesla and SpaceX's Elon Musk, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, and Boeing's Kelly Ortberg. Finance and business leaders included BlackRock's Larry Fink, Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman, JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, Citigroup's Jane Fraser, Goldman Sachs' David Solomon, ExxonMobil's Darren Woods, LVMH's Bernard Arnault and Visa's Ryan McInerey.

From the judiciary and legislature, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh were listed, along with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senator Steven Daines and Representatives Jason Smith and Richard McCormick. Media figures included Fox News hosts Bret Baier, Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters, and Paramount Skydance's David Ellison.