What we learned from state banquet guest list

Beneath gilded portraits and suits of armour in Windsor Castle, 160 guests wined and dined at a lavish banquet to fete US President Donald Trump’s unprecedented second state visit to the UK on Wednesday evening.

Along with the impeccable table settings, three-course meal and custom cocktail, who was there and, just as importantly, who was seated next to who is carefully planned, since the event is as much about diplomacy as it is about fine dining.

This year’s guest list was conspicuously missing screen stars or celebrity faces, with not even royal perennials like Sir David Beckham or Sir Elton John attending.

Instead, the list was mostly royals, tech and finance executives, and politicos from both sides of the Atlantic.

From Trump’s seat of honour at the centre of the table, next to his host King Charles III, those up and down the table ranged from lesser-known but influential White House players to professional golfers.

Here were some notable guests – and their neighbours at the table.

The table leaned towards power, wealth and influence, including Apple’s boss Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, OpenAi’s Sam Altman, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman and – still powerful after all these years, Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch.

The last is a surprising invitee given the fact Trump is suing one of his newspapers for billions over claims he wrote a note framed by a drawing of a naked woman to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Less surprising perhaps is that Murdoch, owner of The Sun and The Times, was sat next to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s chief political spin doctor Morgan McSweeney.

In purely financial terms however, Murdoch’s Newscorp is small fry. The others between them run companies worth nearly 10 trillion dollars – four times the value of the entire UK economy.

US business royalty sat down with UK royalty and served up a £150 billon investment into the UK over the coming years.

Over half of that (£90 billion) is coming from private equity giant Blackstone – little wonder that boss Stephen Schwarzman was seated next to Sir Keir.

But what do these benefactors want in return? Abolishing the UK’s digital services tax, watering down the online safety act? No and no, insists the government, who says it sees the relationship akin to the one we share on defence and intelligence.

As the Ukraine war has demonstrated, Europe is heavily dependent on the US for those things.

Some have described this as an invasion rather than investment, with former Deputy PM and ex-Meta employee Sir Nick Clegg warning that the UK could become a vassal state creating new dependencies on a handful of US companies.

For a government and country that is in desperate need of investment and growth, you want to be first in line when it’s being dished out – and the UK does appear to be at the front of the queue.

A bulk of the table – nearly two dozen seats – were taken up by Trump’s camp, including his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and a slew of senior members of his administration covering everything from foreign policy to AI.

He was of course joined by his wife, Melania Trump, whose nameplate simply read “Mrs Trump”. She was seated across from her husband, in between Queen Camilla and the Prince of Wales, William, while Catherine, the Princess of Wales, was next to President Trump.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio scored a prime spot next to the King, with Lady Victoria Starmer, not her husband, on his other side.

Tiffany Trump, fourth child of the president, was the only one of Trump’s children to attend the state banquet this time. On the last state visit in 2019, she was one of four children to come. She has been less involved in the Trump administrations than her older siblings, but some like Ivanka Trump have taken a step back in his second term.

Tiffany’s husband Michael Boulos also attended. He is no stranger to London, having studied in the city. He does not hold a role in the Trump administration, but the president picked his father Massad Boulos as a key advisor, and the younger Boulos was placed in a prominent seat beside the Princess of Wales.

Steve Witkoff, a real estate mogul turned Trump’s special envoy who is playing a pivotal role in foreign policy on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, likely found lots to discuss with his neighbour Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s National Security Adviser.

Susan Wiles, White House Chief of Staff, was Trump’s campaign manager in the 2024 election. He called her the “ice maiden” who operates mostly “in the back”, but she is known as one of the most feared political operatives in the US. She was seated next to someone with another important but behind-the-scenes role – private secretary to the King, Sir Clive Alderton.

Another apt pairing was David Sacks, the White House’s AI and crypto tsar, next to Demis Hassabis, CEO and co-founder of Google’s DeepMind, a British-American AI firm.

King Charles was seated next to his guest of honour Trump and Rubio, while the King’s daughter-in-law the Princess of Wales was on Trump’s opposite side.

Queen Camilla was across the table, next to the First Lady, but more interestingly, also flanked by the US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent.

Sitting next to the First Lady, the Prince of Wales could discuss more local matters with his other neighbour, Paula Reynolds, chairwoman of National Grid.

The Princess Royal, Anne, who is known for her love of horses, was sitting next to racehorse trainer John Gosden.

On her other side was the US ambassador to the UK Warren Stephens, who hosted Trump and the First Lady at his residence in Regents Park the first night they arrived in the UK, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves at his opposite elbow.

Other senior royals were seated next to White House powerbrokers.

Princess Anne’s husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence sat next to Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor Stephen Miller.

Beside the Duke of Gloucester, the late Queen Elizabeth II’s cousin, was Dan Scavino, White House deputy chief of staff.

The Duchess of Gloucester was seated next to James Blair, deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs.