The combined net worth of the more than a dozen US CEOs who joined President Donald Trump for a two-day summit in China that kicked off today is nearly $1 trillion. Yes, $688 billion of that is Elon Musk’s, but any beggar would happily settle for Jensen Huang’s estimated $183 billion fortune.

Most of the total comes from the tech powerhouses represented: In addition to Tesla’s Musk and Nvidia’s Huang, there’s “Tim Apple,” as Trump once called Apple CEO Tim Cook. However, a mighty Wall Street contingent featuring the likes of Stephen Blackstone, Larry BlackRock, Jane Citigroup and David Goldman Sachs is there, too.

Just One Ask

The thing Wall Street wants from this week’s gathering is more obvious than 7-foot-6 former NBA star Yao Ming at China’s National People’s Congress: less uncertainty. Last year, Trump’s global trade war heated up to Sichuan levels of spicy, as he at one point imposed 140% tariffs on Chinese imports. China responded by blocking exports of rare earth minerals, crucial to all kinds of advanced manufacturing, to the US.

Citigroup, which maintains a major institutional presence in the country, said on an earnings call in February that major global clients have been put “in a very challenging environment” because of geopolitical factors including US-China relations.

Goldman Sachs, in its March annual report, echoed the sentiment, saying its business “may be adversely affected by disruptions in the global economy caused by escalating tensions between the US and China.” Predictions markets are betting these firms, all of whose CEOs are in Beijing with Trump, will get the sort of stabilizing news they want, while other Wall Street firms go in with more bespoke hopes:

• As of this morning, traders on Kalshi placed the odds Trump will announce the extension of an October tariff truce with Beijing at 80%. That deal saw China pause its export controls on rare earths while the US halved the tariffs Trump levied over fentanyl.
• Of particular note, payments giant Visa, whose CEO Ryan McInerney is on the trip, has been waiting nine years for Chinese regulators to approve its application for a domestic payments license. Rival Mastercard, whose President Michael Miebach will also be there, was approved in 2020 (the same year as Amex) and, according to Reuters, wants US officials to press China to allow it to take a bigger stake in its joint venture with Chinese partner NetsUnion.

Car Problems: The share of China’s foreign direct investment made in North America has plummeted from 27% a decade ago to 2.6% last year, but Trump told the Detroit Economic Club in January he would welcome Chinese companies, especially automakers, manufacturing on US soil if it meant creating American jobs. Members of Congress, however, both Republican and Democrat, cautioned him against entertaining any such notion ahead of this week’s summit.

When it comes to data centers, all power flows through Wolfspeed. Literally.

Shares of the company soared more than 16% on Wednesday after a Citrini Research report argued that its silicon carbide “power semiconductors,” which control the voltage of power flowing through everything from AI data center servers to EVs, place it comfortably at the center of the ongoing AI infrastructure rollout. Yes, the same Citrini Research whose 2028 AI doomsday scenario spooked Wall Street earlier this year is now moving markets by finding a little daily upside in the AI boom.

The Next Chapter

The Citrini callout, part of a broader paywalled analysis of AI supply chain winners posted Tuesday, is a sign of Wolfspeed’s remarkable comeback. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last June, after it failed to secure $750 million in government grants via the 2022 Chips Act that were contingent on the company successfully refinancing its debt load. In May of last year, Wolfspeed was the most shorted US stock by percentage of shares sold short, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. But the firm exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy by September, having successfully reduced its debt by 70%.

Now, it has become one of the hottest stocks on the market, up more than 230% this year, and its past missteps seem to be the very thing setting it up for success:

• Last year, the company crumpled under its debt after aggressively expanding its production capacity before demand could catch up. But in 2026, the biggest AI firms can’t keep up with compute demand, and Wolfspeed’s efficiency-minded tech is looking more appealing than ever.
• In its report, Citrini called Wolfspeed “a crouching tiger getting ready to reveal a dragon that deserves to not just be priced based on what their fab’s replacement value theoretically is, but reflect the fact that it’s not going to be replaced,” adding that its “setup now, on the other side of bankruptcy, is perfect.”

Speed Trap: Still, Wall Street isn’t exactly basing its positions on current fundamentals. In its third-quarter earnings call earlier this month, Wolfspeed reported a net loss of roughly $120 million on revenue of about $150 million, down from about $185 million a year ago, and said it paid $52 million in interest. In other words, the turnaround is still very much in progress, though Citrini sees light at the end of the tunnel.

Rufus, Amazon’s AI shopping assistant, is headed to an early retirement. Instead, Amazon is counting on Alexa to help shoppers compare prices for bulk toilet paper orders and to suggest they splurge on a high-end bidet.

Amazon put Rufus to work in 2024 and said more than 300 million shoppers were consulting the AI bot on their buys in 2025. But now, Amazon thinks Alexa will do a better job of bridging users’ experiences across its ecosystem: If someone chats with Alexa on their Echo speaker about getting into baking, Alexa can pop up on the Amazon site later to help them choose cake pans and piping tips.

Everyone’s Personal Shopper

Tech companies want to use agentic AI chatbots to put Miranda Priestly in everyone’s pockets. The new Alexa can make suggestions, compare products, generate guides and auto-buy products that hit a certain price.

Whether shoppers are ready to hand AI their credit cards is another question:

• OpenAI ended Instant Checkout this year, a feature that let ChatGPT users check out directly within the chat. Now, retailers are creating apps within the chatbot instead. Multiple retailers, including early partner Etsy, told Modern Retail that people weren’t buying much within ChatGPT.
• Amazon has gotten backlash for letting AI complete purchases on third-party sites on a shopper’s behalf, a feature that’ll live on under the new Alexa shopping assistant. Retailers have complained about the program, saying they didn’t opt into it and that it allows users to order nonexistent or sold-out products. Amazon told CNBC that “Buy for Me” helps businesses reach new customers and drive more sales.

Alexa, Play Mall Muzak: A recent report from McKinsey and ICSC found that AI could drive $1 trillion in retail sales by 2030, but it suggested AI shopping tools may be used more for discovery than checkout. Many shoppers even head to IRL stores to make the final purchase after researching products using AI. Tech companies are also assuming that shopping is a chore that people want to automate … Clearly, they’ve never strolled around stores drinking smoothies with their BFF.