Lee to meet Samsung's Lee Jae-yong, Hyundai's Euisun Chung this week after dinner with SK's Chey

President Lee Jae Myung, who held a private dinner with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won last week, is set to meet Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Euisun Chung in back-to-back meetings this week.

According to political and business circles, Lee dined privately with Chey at an undisclosed location in Seoul on Thursday. He is coordinating plans to meet Chung on Monday and Lee Jae-yong on Wednesday.

The specific topics discussed have not been disclosed, but the meetings may have touched on what is expected to be unveiled soon as the first major US-bound investment project. Energy has been prominently mentioned as a leading candidate for the first project tied to the ongoing South Korea-US tariff negotiations.

The meetings come as pressure mounts on semiconductor investment. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently made a public call on Samsung and SK Group to expand memory chip production rather than building foundry (semiconductor CMO) or packaging fabs.

However, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jung-kwan, upon returning from his US visit, said semiconductor-related matters did not come up in his talks with Lutnick.

The meetings may also have included further discussion of the Honam semiconductor cluster, where Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have each announced plans to build two front-end memory chip fabs. Political circles have recently raised the possibility that the number of fabs built in the Honam region could expand beyond four.

Min Hyeong-bae, mayor of the integrated special city of South Jeolla Province and Gwangju, also recently told a closed-door meeting with the city council that, based on consultations with Korea Electric Power Corporation on power supply for the semiconductor facilities, "it seems to be settling at nine fabs — five for Samsung Electronics and four for SK Hynix."

President Lee has been stepping up his engagement with the business community. Ahead of the announcement of three major projects in June, he held back-to-back meetings with Chey and Lee Jae-yong in late June.

In July, the CEOs of global tech companies including Nvidia, OpenAI and Broadcom joined Chey, Lee Jae-yong and Chung at the San Francisco AI Summit.