Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is embracing President Trump with new zeal as the chipmaker seeks to balance complicated geopolitical tensions while maintaining its dominant role in the artificial intelligence (AI) world.
In the first nine months of the administration, Huang has managed to develop a strong relationship with the president that has proved key to navigating an on-again, off-again trade war between the U.S. and China.
This dynamic was on full display at Nvidia’s GTC conference in Washington, D.C., this week, an event dubbed the “Super Bowl of AI.”
Huang wrapped a two-hour keynote, awash with compliments for the president’s efforts to boost energy and domestic manufacturing, by borrowing Trump’s signature phrase and thanking the audience for “making America great again.”
Shortly after, Huang was on a plane to South Korea, racing to get to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum where he was hoping to cross paths with Trump before the president’s departure.
“There’s a lot of value for Jensen Huang to cozy up with Trump and feel like he’s in his good graces,” said Owen Tedford, senior research analyst with Beacon Policy Advisors.
Nvidia secured a major win earlier this year, when Trump allowed the company to sell its H20 chips to China. In a move that has sparked national security concerns, the president signaled during his APEC trip an openness to approving sales of its next-generation Blackwell chips.
“At the same time, just with the value and the attention on Nvidia, Trump wants to be seen as being close to that, as being able to support it, encourage their growth domestically,” Tedford added. “So, I think there’s this mutually beneficial relationship that we’re seeing develop.”
At the outset of Trump’s second term, Huang was a rising star in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street as the head of one of the world’s most valuable companies. But he had yet to reach Trump’s radar, as the president acknowledged earlier this year.
“Who the hell is he? What’s his name?” Trump said in July, recounting when he first learned of Huang. “His name is Jensen Huang of Nvidia. I said, ‘What the hell is Nvidia?’”
Nvidia, which originated as a chipmaker for video games, has seen its profile and market value explode over the past few years as its chips became integral to the AI boom.
As of late 2022, when OpenAI released ChatGPT and first gave the public a taste of AI, Nvidia had yet to reach a market capitalization of $1 trillion. It is now the most valuable company in the world at $5 trillion, becoming the first firm to cross the historic milestone.
“Given how important Jensen’s become to the AI revolution, trade and sector, it’s not a surprise,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said of the relationship between Huang and Trump.
The two have publicly traded compliments in recent months, with the president lauding the Nvidia chief as a “brilliant man” and Huang calling Trump “America’s unique advantage.”
Huang offered expansive praise for Trump and his policies at the GTC conference Tuesday, while placing a heavy emphasis on all things America.
“No one works harder, no one,” Huang said of Trump during a question-and-answer session with reporters Tuesday. “100 percent of his phone calls to me are at 10:30 at night, his time, not my time. And this president is working like mad to help America be great and for America to win.”
The Nvidia CEO spoke directly about his and his company’s relationship with the administration, suggesting it is important for industry leaders to inform policymakers in Washington given the technology’s role in politics and geopolitics.
“It’s a completely new adventure for me, but I come with only one purpose, only, which is to inform and to be in service of the president as he thinks about how to make America great and do the best thing for America,” Huang said.
Securing American dominance in AI has been a key priority for the second Trump administration, which has sought to eliminate barriers to the technology’s development by expediting permitting for AI-related energy projects and pushing back against state efforts at AI regulation.
However, China also has its eyes on winning the AI race, leaving Nvidia in a tricky position as it seeks to sell to both superpowers.
This tension has been most visible in the debate over chip export controls. The Trump administration initially restricted sales of Nvidia’s H20 chips to China before reversing course this summer in exchange for a 15 percent cut of revenue.
The decision to permit H20 sales was highly controversial, facing backlash from both sides of the aisle amid concerns that the U.S. is handing away crucial technology that could boost Beijing’s AI capabilities.
The administration has emphasized that the H20, which was built for the Chinese market with U.S. export controls in mind, is not the company’s most advanced chip.
However, Trump has indicated that a reduced capacity version of Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell chip could be on the table. The president reignited debate over the issue Wednesday when he said he might speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping about the chips.
“We’ll be speaking about Blackwell, we’ll be speaking about — Blackwell is the super-duper chip,” he told reporters, adding, “It’s an amazing thing that they’ve done. Our country, we’re about 10 years ahead of anybody else in chips, in the highly sophisticated chips. I think we may be talking about that with President Xi.”
The two leaders did not ultimately discuss the chips at Thursday’s highly anticipated meeting, where Trump and Xi agreed to deescalate recent trade tensions.
As part of the deal, the U.S. walked back its 100 percent tariff threat, and China agreed to delay export controls on rare earth minerals, which are essential for semiconductors and other electronics.
It marks the latest détente in a tumultuous relationship between Washington and Beijing in recent months — one that risks catching Nvidia in its crosshairs in the future and could jeopardize the relationship between Huang and Trump, Tedford noted.
“In some ways, [Huang] can be a bridge between the U.S. and China when times are good and play to Trump’s sense of wanting to make a deal with China and seeing the positives,” he said.
“But I think where he could find himself on the outs is if Trump decides that China’s not delivering on whatever these different commitments that they’ve made, and that is where the relationship could start to fall apart,” Tedford continued.
However, Ives is optimistic about the staying power of the relationship between the Nvidia CEO and Trump, suggesting it is a “unique relationship that has legs because they both need each other.”
