Jensen Huang, Magic Johnson, Patrick Dempsey, Linda Yaccarino And More Bigwigs Headline Milken Global Conference 2025: What You Need To Know

The Milken Institute's 28th annual Global Conference began on Sunday and will run through May 7 at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles.

What Happened: Held under the theme “Toward a Flourishing Future,” the event features more than 1,000 speakers and 5,000 attendees from over 80 countries, including CEOs, policymakers, scientists, philanthropists, and cultural icons.

Among the high-profile attendees this year are Nvidia Corp. NVDA CEO Jensen Huang, former basketball player Magic Johnson, actor Patrick Dempsey, X Corp. CEO Linda Yaccarino, former First Lady Jill Biden, Ford Philanthropy President Mary Culler, Abbott Laboratories ABT CEO Robert Ford and Citadel LLC founder Ken Griffin.

From closed-door roundtables to public panels, attendees are engaging in discussions on artificial intelligence, climate resilience, healthcare innovation, income inequality, and women's health, among other pressing issues.

A Recap Of 2024: Last year at the conference, in a session with Mike Milken, Tesla Inc. TSLA CEO Elon Musk spoke about his top concerns, including declining birth rates, threats to democracy, and the erosion of merit-based systems.

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Another headline-making moment was when billionaire investor Bill Ackman came under sharp criticism from top Wall Street executives for his opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives during a closed-door session at the Milken Institute Global Conference.

OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap also attended the event last year and used the stage to forecast a new wave of AI tools that will act less like static oracles and more like dynamic, intelligent teammates.

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