FIRST ON FOX: A select group of tech industry titans and venture capitalists will gather in Washington, D.C., this week to welcome the incoming Trump administration and celebrate new opportunities for global innovation in artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship. 

Presidents and CEOs from companies on the cutting edge of AI tech and their big financial backers, along with personnel from the incoming administration, will attend a dinner on Thursday organized by Outside the Box Ventures, a firm founded last year by journalist-turned-investment banker Katherine Tarbox, along with Laurent Bili, the French ambassador to the U.S.

The list of those invited to Thursday's dinner includes "DOGE" chief Elon Musk, Silicon Valley investor and GOP mega-donor Peter Thiel, NVCA chief executive Bobby Franklin, incoming White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, OpenAI's Sam Altman, investor Joe Lonsdale and Narya co-founder Colin Greenspon.

"This gathering represents more than discussion. We hope it symbolizes a new chapter in public-private collaboration to harness technology’s transformative power for the nation’s future," a source close to the planning told Fox News Digital. The event comes days before President-elect Trump is inaugurated as the nation's 47th president.

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America's leading entrepreneurs want to seize what Microsoft's Brad Smith has called a "golden opportunity for American technology and economic competitiveness." The aim is for the joined forces of industry leaders and government resources that Trump brought together for Operation Warp Speed, his first administration's lauded COVID-19 vaccine program, to be reproduced for advancements in AI. 

The participation of Bili reflects how France is interested in being a leader in AI, with a global action summit on the rapidly developing technology to be held in Paris this February, and believes the U.S. is a valuable partner in this effort. 

"We believe this is the hottest ticket for tech and venture capital up to the inauguration," the source said. The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Franklin, the CEO of the National Venture Capital Association, the industry trade group for venture capital, confirmed he plans to attend. He told Fox News Digital there is great excitement in his industry for several of Trump's hires who have backgrounds in venture capital, including Sacks, a billionaire tech executive, and Vice President-elect JD Vance.

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"One of our challenges is always educating, and there's always a lack of understanding of what the venture industry does, how it works with entrepreneurs, how it creates great tech and drugs and everything else in the economy," Franklin said. "And so having folks that understand that coming into the administration is a wonderful, welcome situation from our perspective." 

The dinner comes at a critical juncture for the U.S., which leads the world in AI startups but faces tough competition from China and other foreign adversaries. 

American companies received more than 40% of global AI funding in 2023, surpassing China and the European Union combined. That same year, U.S. venture capital firms unleashed $17.9 billion in funds for AI startups, contributing to the leaps and bounds in generative AI tech popularized by ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and Grok from xAI.

More than 10,000 AI-related patents have been filed by U.S. entities in the past five years, showcasing the deep bench of American innovators that Franklin and others believe Trump stands ready to support.

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But analysts warn that China's recent developments in AI technology pose a challenge to American dominance in this field and may even threaten U.S. national and economic security.

A recent report published by American Edge Project cautions that "China is rapidly advancing its own open-source ecosystem as an alternative to American technology and using it as a Trojan horse to implant its CCP values into global infrastructure."

The report called China's progress "both significant and concerning." 

"Chinese-developed open-source AI tools are already outperforming Western models on key benchmarks, while operating at dramatically lower costs, accelerating global adoption. Through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which spans more than 155 countries on four continents, and its Digital Silk Road (DSR), China is exporting its technology worldwide, fostering increased global dependence, undermining democratic norms, and threatening U.S. leadership and global security."

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There is a broad expectation that the Trump administration will let the private sector lead the way as the U.S. confronts China. Whereas the Biden administration prioritized establishing "guardrails" for AI development through regulatory bodies, analysts for Perkins Coie note that Trump has promised to revoke a Biden-era executive order that set policy for federal agency AI purchases and uses. The 2024 Republican platform claimed Biden's policy "hinders innovation and imposes Radical Leftwing Ideas," apparently in reference to requirements that the National Institute of Standards and Technology create guidance to ensure AI models are unbiased and do not discriminate based on race or sex.

Additionally, Trump's appointment of Sacks as AI czar signals his thinking on AI is in line with Sacks' associates Musk and Thiel, who each co-founded PayPal and favor a deregulatory agenda. 

"The new czar will likely be tasked with coordinating with federal agencies and outside stakeholders to ensure consistent guidance regarding AI use in the federal government. We would expect Sacks to be less focused on the potential harms of AI and more focused on promoting and facilitating AI innovation with fewer restraints," Perkins Coie said. 

Thursday's gathering is a strictly nonpartisan event, though Silicon Valley's high interest in building relationships with a Republican administration would seem to signal shifting political priorities. 

Previously, issues like immigration and climate change distanced Big Tech from the GOP. And when Trump first ran for president, his populist MAGA movement was an unknown factor that led many entrepreneurs to keep that distance. 

But a growing recognition of AI as a national priority has appeared to bridge that gap. So has a more clearly defined Trump, with key players in his second administration that have ties to the venture capital world.

"You know, it was certainly a political outsider that won in 2016," Franklin said. "Now, he's not an outsider."

Virginia's top legislative Democrat sounded an alarm over President-elect Trump's Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) plan to tell a portion of the federal workforce "you're fired" for efficiency's sake.

The state Senate's top Republican responded Thursday by saying the majority party is "asking the wrong question."

Earlier this week, House Speaker Don Scott Jr. wrote a letter to the commonwealth's unemployment agency warning of the fallout from such a plan and a potential uptick in unemployment claims.

"We should all be concerned about what these changes mean for the employees raising their families in Virginia, paying taxes in Virginia and calling Virginia home," Scott wrote to Virginia Employment Commissioner Demetrios Melis in a letter reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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"Taking President-elect Trump at his word that he will immediately move to downsize the workforce and relocate agencies, we can safely assume that a large portion of our workforce that resides in the commonwealth will be negatively affected," added Scott, D-Portsmouth.

Scott reportedly said he believes Northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads area he represents would be hardest-hit.

"I have concerns that, in the coming months, not only will our nation experience a mass increase in unemployment due to the proposed changes to our government. But, more importantly, those changes will have a detrimental effect on Virginians, our commonwealth’s unemployment rate and our economy overall," he told the Times-Dispatch.

However, Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-New Kent, said the concept of DOGE addresses a greater concern for Virginians and U.S. taxpayers when it comes to fiscally responsible governance.

"That's the wrong question," McDougle said in an interview Thursday.

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"The question should be whether we are taking dollars that Virginians are earning and paying to the federal government and whether they are being spent wisely.

"If the federal government is paying people to do jobs they shouldn't be doing, then that's spending taxpayer dollars unwisely."

Trump's DOGE co-leader, Vivek Ramaswamy, previously told Fox Business, "We expect mass reductions … [and] certain agencies to be deleted outright." 

Ramaswamy's counterpart, Elon Musk, has expressed similar sentiments, including a tweet stating, "Delete CFPB," a reference to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Additionally, Sen. Joni Ernst, the Iowa Republican seen as the top DOGE lawmaker in the upper chamber, is spearheading a bill to relocate about one-third of federal workers outside the District of Columbia-Maryland-Virginia area. The legislation proposed by Ernst has a lengthy acronym, the DRAIN THE SWAMP Act.

Ernst also demanded answers from Biden agency heads about work-from-home policies their staffs enjoy.

In his remarks Thursday, McDougle added that if Democrats were so concerned about the subject, they should have balked at plans to funnel Virginia taxpayer funds to the Washington-area Metro system to "subsidize" the lack of ridership from telework policies criticized by Ernst.

"I didn't feel our Democratic friends were as concerned with the millions of dollars going to fund Metro amid [federal workers not being required to] go into the office and having to subsidize them," McDougle said.

Virginia's 2024 budget included about $144 million in Metro funding. Metro CEO Randy Clarke said in June the transit agency found an additional $50 million in efficiencies for its nearly $5 billion budget, according to multiple reports.

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Earlier this month, a top Democrat on the state House Labor Committee, said she was "very disappointed" with a response from representatives for Gov. Glenn Youngkin when she voiced concerns about potential federal workforce cuts.

State Delegate Candi Mundon King, D-Dumfries, noted in November that thousands of federal workers live in the state and in her district and called DOGE's plan "disastrous" after the Virginia Republican Party touted the "streamlin[ing of] government bureaucracy" as "good for all Americans, including Virginians."

Mundon King's district sits in the Washington exurb of Prince William County, which, for many years, was led by high-profile conservative Corey Stewart but has recently swung heavily Democratic.

"No wonder Northern Virginia has lost faith in Virginia Republicans," Mundon King said.

Youngkin, a successful business executive before entering politics, previously said anyone who leaves the private sector to work in government will immediately recognize it needs drastic adjustments.

"Whether it's me coming into state government in Virginia or President Trump coming back into the federal government, [we] know it is inefficient. It does not work with the same efficiency you would expect out of a business," he told The Daily Progress of Charlottesville.

Government efficiency plans "may result in some job losses for the federal government. … The great thing about the Commonwealth of Virginia is we have nearly 300,000 jobs that are unfilled," he added.

Melis similarly told Scott Virginia is "well prepared" to adapt to changes in employment figures and reassured Mundon King earlier this month that some of the concerns voiced were premature, according to The Roanoke Times.

Youngkin earlier this month invited workers in Trump's incoming administration to choose Virginia as their place of residence over Maryland or the District of Columbia, citing, in part, lower taxes and better-ranked schools.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez said Virginia's economy was "stagnant" and the unemployment system "in shambles" when the Republican took office after eight years of Democratic governorship.

"Commonsense policies to lower the cost of living and bring real business-like efficiency to government have helped fix both," Martinez said.

"The governor appreciates Speaker Scott’s recent commitments to support further tax relief, which, along with a roaring economy and over 300,000 open jobs, means Virginia is in a great position as the president works to shrink the bloated federal government."