Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, was inadvertently recorded admitting to former President Donald Trump that he was stumped by a question during a White House gathering, as he sat beside the president.

Joining Zuckerberg at the dinner on Thursday were several industry bigwigs, including Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, and Sundar Pichai from Google, as well as Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI.

Trump asked the Meta CEO and founder how much he was planning on spending in the US during the televised event. 

‘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,’ he responded. 

Trump noted that it was a lot of money, and Zuckerberg confessed, ‘Yeah, no it’s significant’. 

Later on in the event, Zuckerberg was heard apologizing to Trump and admitting that he wasn’t ready for the question. 

Trump laughed and told Melania, who was seated on his other side, that Zuckerberg wasn’t prepared. 

‘I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with,’ Zuckerberg confessed. 

Daily Mail reached out to Meta for comment on Zuckerberg’s ‘hot mic’ remarks. 

In another awkward moment, Zuckerberg admitted that he ‘wasn’t paying attention’ when a reporter asked him about free speech legislation in the UK. 

Trump then joked that it was ‘the beginning’ of Zuckerberg’s political career, which the CEO denied with a laugh.  

The president also asked other moguls at the dinner about their US investment plans, including Pichai, who said Google was planning on investing $250 billion in the US, and Cook said that Apple was also planning on investing $600 billion. 

‘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,’ Cook told Trump when he announced the investment. 

‘I think it says a lot about your leadership and focus on innovation,’ he added. 

The high-profile event was a ‘who’s who’ in Silicon Valley, with the world’s most influential tech leaders, including 13 billionaires, in attendance. 

The sit-down dinner in the State Dining Room followed a summit hosted by the first lady earlier in the day on artificial intelligence in education.

The event was initially meant to debut the newly renovated Rose Garden, but the dinner was moved to the dining room due to rain. 

The president began the dinner by thanking the moguls, praising the intelligence of the attendees, and boasting that it was ‘definitely 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’.

The tech leaders took turns speaking and used the opportunity to offer unfiltered praise for the president. 

Even previous Trump critics like Gates praised the president and thanked him for his collaboration in the tech industry. 

Altman, who once compared Trump to Adolf Hitler, thanked the president for being ‘pro-business’ and ‘pro-innovation,’ adding that his embrace of the tech industry was ‘a very refreshing change’. 

‘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,’ he added. 

Trump’s former head of the Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk, colloquially referred to as the ‘First Buddy’ was notably absent from the event.