Apple absent from Trump's AI lunch as Cook and Ternus skip meeting

Apple was the only major US tech company not represented at President Trump's White House AI lunch; neither Chairman Tim Cook nor new CEO John Ternus attended. The White House and Apple declined to comment, while investor Brad Gerstner dismissed the absence as a "nothing burger," noting Cook was at the White House a week earlier for the state dinner with Xi Jinping.

• Every major US tech company attended except Apple
• Cook remains executive chairman handling global policy engagement
• Gerstner: attendees were firms "pushing the frontier on model development"
• Apple did not sign the AI safety accord agreed at the meeting