Mark Zuckerberg caught on hot mic making awkward admission to Donald Trump
Mark Zuckerberg has been caught on mic making an awkward confession to Donald Trump.
The 41-year-old Meta CEO was heard making an embarrassing admission to President Trump over a question he was asked while he was sat next to the POTUS during a dinner.
On Thursday (September 4), Zuckerberg joined several other tech moguls in a high profile Silicon Valley meeting, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Sundar Pichai of Google, and the OpenAI founder Sam Altman.
Elon Musk, Trump's so-called 'first buddy', was notably absent from the event which was pitched to harness artificial intelligence to 'propel the US to the forefront of global innovation', and followed from First Lady Melania Trump's summit on AI in education.
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However, during the televised dinner, the POTUS asked Zuckerberg how much he intended on spending in the US.
Apparently caught off guard by the question, he said: "Oh gosh, um, I think it's probably gonna be, something like, I don't know, at least $600 billion through '28, in the US, yeah."
When Trump acknowledged the huge sum, Zuckerberg said: "Yeah, no it's significant."
Later on, a hot mic caught the tech billionaire issuing an apology to Trump and admitted he wasn't prepared for the question, reports The Daily Mail.
"I wasn't sure what number you wanted to go with," he confessed.
Zuckerberg further confessed that he 'wasn't paying attention' to another reporter's question about free speech laws in the UK.
Trump jibed back that it was 'the beginning' of his career in politics, which Zuckerberg waved away with a laugh.
The insight comes as President Trump has asked others around the table about their spending plans, including Pinchai who announced Google would invest $250 billion in the US, while Cook said Apple was planning a hefty investment of $600 billion.
The Apple CEO told Trump: "I want to thank you for setting the tone such that we can make a major investment in the United States and have some key manufacturing here.
"I think it says a lot about your leadership and focus on innovation."
Altman similarly thanked the president for his 'pro-business' and 'pro-innovation' approach, adding that Trump posed a 'very refreshing change' for the tech industry.
"I think it’s going to set us up for a long period of leading the world, and that wouldn’t be happening without your leadership," the OpenAI boss said.
Trump had also remarked that the gathering of the globe's most influential tech leaders and billionaires in the State Dining Room contained a 'high IQ group.'
"I know everybody at the table indirectly through reading about you and studying, knowing a lot about your business, actually making it very easy for you in terms of electric capacity and getting it for you, getting your permits," he said.
Topics: Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump, Politics, US News, Tim Cook, Google, Artificial Intelligence, Melania Trump, Apple, Technology, Bill Gates
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