Trump wanted to break up Nvidia — but then its CEO won him over

Not agelong ago, President Donald Trump hadn’t adjacent heard of Nvidia, the astir invaluable tech institution successful the world. But erstwhile helium recovered retired astir the AI spot giant, helium says, helium wanted to interruption it up.

“Before I learned the facts of life, I said, ‘we’ll interruption him up,’” Trump recalled today, successful a code astir his caller AI Action Plan astatine an event hosted successful Washington, DC. He recounted what seemed to beryllium a speech betwixt himself and an advisor who helium didn’t name, who told him it would beryllium “very hard” to interruption up Nvidia:

I said, “why?” I said, “what percent of the marketplace does helium have?”

“Sir, helium has 100%,” they said. 

“Who the hellhole is he? What’s his name?”

“His sanction is Jensen Huang, Nvidia.”

I said, “What the hellhole is Nvidia? I’ve ne'er heard of it before.”

He said, “you don’t privation to cognize astir it, sir.”

Trump said helium backed distant from breaking up Nvidia aft helium realized it could beryllium counterproductive. “I figured we could spell successful and we could benignant of interruption them up a small bit, get them a small competition,” Trump said. “And I recovered retired it’s not casual successful that business. I said, ‘suppose that we enactment the top minds unneurotic and they enactment hand-in-hand for a mates of years.’ He said, ‘no, it would instrumentality astatine slightest 10 years to drawback him if helium ran Nvidia wholly incompetently from present on.’ So I said, ‘all right, let’s spell connected to the adjacent one.’” 

“And past I got to cognize Jensen, and present I spot why,” Trump added. 

Huang successfully convinced the Trump administration to fto Nvidia sell its H20 chips to China, opening a important caller avenue of gross that the US had antecedently closed owed to concerns it could assistance a US adversary beforehand its ain AI efforts. To assuage those fears, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has insisted that the chips it’s present allowing to beryllium sold to China are lone the “fourth-best” AI chips, and the thought is to get Chinese developers “addicted to the American exertion stack.”

Regardless of however it plays retired for US policy, the alteration has been a boon for Nvidia, which adjacent earlier the announcement had go the first publically traded institution worthy $4 trillion. Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department had reportedly been probing the company connected antitrust grounds. But Trump’s evident about-face connected breaking it up means we astir apt shouldn’t expect a suit anytime soon.