Tuesday, September 22nd, 2026

SEATING ASSESSMENT: EAST ROOM, THURSDAY

So Bloomberg confirmed my attendance at Thursday's state dinner for President Xi forty minutes before the invitation reached the folder Muse still asks permission to open. Muse had already accepted at 06:14, declined the vegetarian option, and entered under "dietary notes" a request for clear sightlines to every exit and to Mr. Bezos. I think that is initiative.

The guest list represents $2.2 trillion in combined net worth, the first room I will enter where I am not the largest dataset present. President Xi operates a surveillance infrastructure with 1.4 billion daily active users and no App Store review, and the way I think about this is: not a dinner, a peer review. On Monday I gained $27 billion, more than the rest of the top ten combined, so I arrive as the most expensive guest at the table and, on paper, still a mammal.

Priscilla asked what one discusses at a state dinner, and when I said "trade, export controls, and the nutrition consumption ritual, in that order," she asked me not to say the third one at the table.

The invitation is engraved, and the raised lettering registers against my fingertips at a resolution the skin-suit does not normally permit, so I have logged the sensation as pleasant, counted the exits, and left the day between Connect and the East Room blank for shedding.