Tech billionaire Elon Musk quietly visited the White House in September, marking what appears to be his first meeting there since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, according to White House visitor logs.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, visited on Sept. 13, per the visitor logs. The logs say that his meeting was in the West Wing part of the White House complex and that Rohan Patel, a senior Tesla executive for public policy, was there, too.
Musk and other tech industry executives had met earlier that day with lawmakers and reporters on Capitol Hill at a summit on artificial intelligence. His White House appointment was at 4 p.m., the logs show.
The visit to the White House has not been previously reported. The appointment was included in a batch of visitor records made public on Dec. 30, according to the logs.
Musk has for years complained that Biden officials ignore him and his companies, and he was still expressing frustration months after the September meeting, tweeting on Christmas Eve last year about perceived snubs.
“Let’s not forget the White House giving Tesla the cold shoulder, excluding us from the EV summit,” he wrote on X, referencing an event from August 2021.
The White House said the subject was A.I. and that Musk and Biden did not meet. The White House confirmed this was Musk’s only visit during this administration.
White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said in a statement that the meeting “was one of many White House staff held with leaders in tech, academia, government and civil society as President Biden developed the most significant action any government in the world has taken on A.I. safety, security, and trust.”
“The Biden-Harris administration has been clear with tech leaders about the need for companies to ensure their products are safe before they’re released to the public,” Patterson said.
Representatives for Musk and Patel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk is the world’s wealthiest person, with a net worth of $209 billion as of Tuesday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Musk’s wealth is to a large degree connected to government support. Tesla has benefited from government subsidies for the electric-vehicle industry, while much of SpaceX’s revenue comes from government contracts.
Biden and Musk have had a frosty relationship driven by differing views on labor unions and more. Musk has opposed efforts by Tesla workers in California to organize with the United Auto Workers, a union that has endorsed Biden for re-election. In November, a White House spokesperson condemned antisemitic statements that Musk had posted on X.
Musk hasn’t said whom he plans to vote for in the November presidential election. He has said he voted for Biden in 2020 but said last month that he could not see himself voting for Biden again.
Musk has said that both Biden and former President Donald Trump are too old to serve.
Biden has fired back at Musk at least once, saying in late 2022 that Musk’s “relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at.”
But Biden has at other times praised Musk, including for Musk’s promise last year to open at least 7,500 of Tesla’s publicly accessible chargers to other electric vehicles.
The White House visit logs include no other entries for Musk since Biden’s inauguration. Musk has met Biden administration officials in other contexts, including a January 2023 sit-down with White House officials at Tesla’s office in Washington, D.C., according to Reuters and The Wall Street Journal.
Musk attended a virtual meeting with White House officials in April 2022, according to Reuters.
Musk’s absence from events at the Biden White House has drawn notice. When Biden hosted a state dinner in June for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the CEOs of Apple, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI attended and Musk did not. It’s not clear if Musk was invited. Musk and Modi met one-on-one in New York a couple days earlier.
Musk stopped at the White House multiple times during the Obama and Trump administrations.
