Jensen Huang made headlines Monday at the All-In conference in L.A. for what he said. But there’s something else worth noting about the appearance. Taking a live call from President Trump on stage, Huang, dressed in his now-signature alligator leather jacket, was handed Apple’s new foldable phone to answer it, a device that isn’t due to hit stores for another five weeks.
Flashing your unreleased hardware while chatting with the president? Not a bad flex.
Once he got Trump on speaker, the conversation turned to AI safety, and the two seemed to agree that mounting fears about AI equate to what Trump called a “hoax.” Trump argued that the real winners of the AI panic are China and “political people,” and that the technology is too big — “bigger than the internet,” he said — to slow down over. (“Did you hear that? Thousands of people are clapping,” said Huang to Trump during this same exchange.)
Whether Huang truly shares those same views or isn’t in a position to say otherwise, we’ll never know. Nvidia’s business model depends largely on AI labs buying more chips, so downplaying existential risk is the obvious move if he cares about his company’s share price. (It’s still up 33% for the past year but fell a few percentage points today.)
Either way, while everyone focused on Trump’s surprise call, a few of us noticed the $1,999 phone in Huang’s hand. And maybe that was Huang’s own message. A decade after Apple stopped putting Nvidia hardware in its own devices, it now needs Nvidia enough to run part of Apple Intelligence on it.
