President Donald Trump hosted a high-powered group of tech executives at the White House on Thursday as he showcased research on artificial intelligence and boasted of investments that companies are making around the United States.

It was the latest example of a delicate two-way courtship between Trump and tech leaders, several of whom attended his inauguration. Trump has exulted in the attention from some of the world's most successful businesspeople, while the companies are eager to remain on the good side of the mercurial president.

While the executives praised Trump and talked about their hopes for technological advancement, the Republican president was focused on dollar signs. He went around the table and asked executives how much they were investing in the country.

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, who sat to Trump's right, said $600 billion. Apple's Tim Cook said the same. Google's Sundar Pichai said $250 billion.

“What about Microsoft?” Trump said. “That's a big number.”

Satya Nadella said it was up to $80 billion per year.

“Good,” Trump responded. “Very good.”

Notably absent from the guest list was Elon Musk, once a close ally of Trump who was tasked with running the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk had a public breakup with Trump earlier this year.

At the table instead was one of Musk's rivals in artificial intelligence, Sam Altman of OpenAI.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told President Donald Trump “I’m glad it’s over” after Trump commented that the tech giant had a “very good day,” apparently referring to a federal judge’s ruling on Tuesday that rejected the Justice Department’s push to have Google sell its popular Chrome web browser.

The five-year antitrust case that could have ended in the breakup of the storied Silicon Valley company instead ended with U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta prescribing what most analysts and antitrust experts viewed as a light-handed punishment. The ruling propelled the stock price of Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. to a new high of $230.86 during Wednesday’s trading.

Bill Gates praised Trump’s COVID-vaccine initiative and said he’s talking to Trump about eradicating diseases hours after Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s contentious hearing over vaccine policy.

The Microsoft founder, as he sat next to Melania Trump, spoke about what he called the “second phase” of his career working on global health issues, including “areas like vaccines.”

“The president and I are talking about taking American innovation to the next level to cure and even eradicate some of these diseases,” Gates said.

He said Trump mentioned polio, and said they are working on new science to try to cure HIV and sickle cell disease.

Gates said the U.S. has “the seeds” of the science needed to cure those. “The same way that Warp Speed took those seeds and put them together, I think something fantastic can be done.”