The president will discuss the U.S. economy and job creation with the executives as he promotes an agenda outlined in the $3.7 trillion budget he released this week that aims to keep up government funding for education and research.

The White House hasn’t released the names of those who will attend. The person familiar with the meeting spoke on condition of anonymity because the details haven’t been made public.

The person also said that General Electric Co. CEO Jeffrey Immelt, who Obama picked to lead a White House council on competitiveness, will be at the meeting.

The focus of the discussion is innovation and job creation, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said today. The executives attending know a lot about private sector job growth, he said.

On Feb. 18, Obama plans to visit Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon, campus and tour the company’s semiconductor manufacturing facility with Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini. That stop is intended to highlight the company’s education programs in science, technology, engineering and math.

Leave of Absence

Jobs announced a leave of absence from the most valuable technology company on Jan. 17, the third time the Apple co- founder has taken time away from the company since 2004 to deal with health problems. While Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook has assumed control of day-to-day operations, Apple’s board hasn’t said who will take over for Jobs if he can return.  Apple is the maker of the iPhone and iPad devices and Macintosh personal computers.

Facebook, the world’s most-used social networking service, is hiring as it attracts more users and advertising revenue. It has grown to more than 2,000 employees from about 1,000 in August 2009, according to its website.

The company has more than 500 million users -- compared with about 250 million in July 2009. Facebook, which isn’t publicly traded and doesn’t disclose financial information, may have more than doubled its revenue to about $2 billion last year, three people familiar with the matter said in December.

Google, which had 24,400 people at the end of 2010, hired more than 4,500 last year, making that year second only to 2007, when the company added more than 6,000. Google Inc., based in Mountain View, California, is fending off competition from Facebook which surpassed it as the most-visited website in the U.S. in 2010, according to New York-based Internet tracker Experian Hitwise.

Facebook, along with Google Inc. and Twitter Inc., also increasingly figures in U.S. foreign policy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed yesterday that the U.S. will step up support for global Internet freedom, as citizens using social networking sites and other areas of the Internet to organize demonstrations spreading across the Mideast and North Africa.

(Bloomberg)