One year after Supreme Court acquittal, Lee Jae-yong works to build global network

It has been one year since Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong received a final not-guilty verdict from the Supreme Court on charges of illegal merger and accounting fraud involving Samsung Group.

With the legal risk behind him, Lee has been moving quickly to strengthen his global network, holding a series of meetings overseas with big-tech CEOs and prominent figures from the worlds of politics and business.

Attention is now turning to what comes next after Lee's appearance at the Sun Valley Conference — the exclusive gathering in the United States often described as a billionaires' social retreat. Eyes are on whether he will also attend Google Camp, held annually in late July in Italy, and return with fresh ideas for global strategy.

According to industry sources, Lee attended the Sun Valley Conference at the Sun Valley Resort in Idaho from July 7 to 11 (local time). The invitation-only event, organized by investment firm Allen & Company since 1983, draws leading figures from the global technology and media industries.

This year's gathering again attracted a who's who of big tech. Among those spotted at the conference were Apple CEO Tim Cook and his designated successor, Senior Vice President John Ternus; Amazon founder Jeff Bezos; Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg; OpenAI CEO Sam Altman; Palantir CEO Alex Karp; Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates; and SoftBank Group Chairman Masayoshi Son.

Lee was seen meeting with a number of figures from the investment and media worlds at this year's conference, including Kimberly Querrey, chair of Gulfshore Private Capital, and Wendi Deng, ex-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

This year's trip drew particular attention because Lee was accompanied by Han Jin-man, president of Samsung's foundry business division, raising expectations for new contract wins. Samsung Electronics' foundry arm has been aggressively pursuing big-tech clients on the strength of its Taylor, Texas fab equipped with a 2-nanometer leading-edge process, making Lee's meetings with big-tech CEOs a closely watched development.

Lee's overseas activity has accelerated since he cleared the illegal succession allegations last July. He had stood trial for nearly five years on charges of engineering an illegal merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries and committing accounting fraud at Samsung Biologics, before receiving a final not-guilty verdict on July 17 last year.

His return to Sun Valley after a nine-year absence also dates from around that time. Lee had once described Sun Valley as "the busiest and most important business trip of the year," but his attendance became sporadic from 2017 onward as legal proceedings mounted.

Lee wasted no time heading abroad once the new year began. In January, he attended a gala dinner held ahead of the closing of the first overseas leg of the "Lee Kun-hee Collection" exhibition at the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., where he met Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other political and government figures. He also connected with Wendell Weeks, chairman of Corning, and Noubar Afeyan, CEO of Flagship Pioneering — both key partners of Samsung.

Some overseas trips have translated directly into business results. During a March visit to Europe, Lee met with Mercedes-Benz executives to pitch automotive components and battery products. The following month, Samsung SDI signed its first-ever contract to supply electric vehicle batteries to Mercedes-Benz. The deal is reported to be worth several trillion won.

During President Lee Jae Myung's state visit to Italy last month, Lee drew attention when he was seen showing Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna photos of his daughter on his smartphone. Lee is said to have been close friends with Ferrari Chairman John Elkann for nearly 30 years. Ferrari in May fitted its electric sports car, the Ferrari Luce, with OLED panels supplied by Samsung Display.

Attention now shifts to Lee's upcoming overseas schedule. Observers are watching in particular whether he will attend Google Camp this year — the exclusive annual gathering that draws top global figures from politics and business alike.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have convened the event every July since 2013 at the Rocco Forte Verdura Golf Resort, a seaside retreat in southern Sicily, Italy. The gathering is known not as a forum for discussing specific technologies but as a venue for exchanging views on major global issues from a broad, long-term perspective.

Lee has received an invitation to Google Camp every year since 2022. Among Korean business leaders, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Euisun Chung have also attended in the past. Should Lee attend this year, it would mark his fifth consecutive appearance.