US President Barack Obama plans to have a private dinner Thursday evening with Silicon Valley tech titans including Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt, according to media reports.
"The president and the business leaders will discuss our shared goal of promoting American innovation, and discuss his commitment to new investments in research and development, education and clean energy," a White House official said.
In his State of the Union address delivered on Jan. 25, Obama cited technology companies as heirs to the industries that made the U.S. the world’s biggest economy.
“We’re the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook,” he said. “In America, innovation doesn’t just change our lives. It is how we make our living.”
Jobs' attendance is surprising not only for his ongoing medical leave of absence from Apple, but also for the rumors from celebrity gossip magazine National Enquirer.
The magazine quoted an "expert" who, after seeing photos purportedly taken outside a Stanford cancer center, noted: "I would say he has six weeks [to live]."
According to CBS News, the list of guests at the dinner includes: Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple; Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook; Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo; and John Hennessy, president of Stanford University.
（以上新闻选择新华网）