Mark Zuckerberg was caught on a hot mic admitting he didn’t quite know how to answer a question about artificial intelligence.
The Meta boss was attending a big, glitzy dinner at the White House on Thursday (4 September), alongside other Silicon Valley leaders such as Tim Cook and Bill Gates.
Donald Trump’s former bestie Elon Musk was seemingly not invited though, as the attendees announced billions in US investments.
The dinner marked Silicon Valley’s strategic realignment with the president’s administration on AI and tech policies.
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And Zuckerberg was asked by Trump how much he would be spending ‘over the next few years’. Having paused before his answer, the Facebook co-founder later leaned over to the president to say he ‘wasn’t ready’ as Trump laughed away.
Mic’d up and answering the question, Zuckerberg had said: “Oh gosh, um, I think it’s probably going to be something like…I don’t know, $600 billion through [20]28, in the US, yeah…”
Trump laughed: “It’s a lot.”
“No, it’s er, it’s significant,” the seemingly caught-off guard Zuckerberg responded.
But later on during the event, as others around the table chatted away, Zuckerberg could be heard leaning over to say to the president: “Sorry, I wasn’t ready to do our… [inaudible].”
And Trump brought in first lady Melania as he said: “He said ‘I wasn’t ready…’ [inaudible].”
Zuckerberg can then be heard quietly adding: “I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with.”
As users shared clips of this moment on social media, the tech giant took to Threads to clarify his comments caught on the hot mic.
“If AI progress keeps accelerating, it's quite possible we'll invest even more than this. I had briefed the President that we're planning to invest $600B+ in the US through '28 and a significantly higher number through the end of the decade,” Zuckerberg wrote.
“I wasn't sure which number he was asking about, so I just shared the lower number through '28 and clarified with him afterwards.”
His relationship with Trump certainly seems to have changed, with the president only a year or so ago threatening him with spending ‘the rest of his life in prison’.
Meta had even banned Trump from its platforms following the 6 January riots in 2021, and the Republican leader referred to Facebook as ‘an enemy of the people’.
But now, they’re sat side-by-side at dinner in the White House with Zuckerberg having donated $1 million to his inauguration.
Topics: Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump, Artificial Intelligence, AI, Technology
Jess Battison