Amid this week’s heated Washington debates over how to regulate artificial intelligence, Donald Trump, the U.S. president, placed a phone call to Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO - a figure who these days is regarded as his closest ally in this area.
According to Etna, the call took place on Monday during the All-In Summit event in Los Angeles, while Huang was on stage and had put the phone on speaker.
In the conversation, Trump told Huang that robots are not going to take over the world. The U.S. president also once again emphasized - as he has earlier on social media - that growing concerns about AI and data centers are a “joke” or a deception.
Huang’s growing influence in the White House
According to the report, although other tech industry leaders such as Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, have also developed close ties with him in Trump’s second term, experts told CNBC that Huang enjoys influence in the White House beyond that of others.
Huang’s position as CEO of the world’s most valuable company gives him direct access to the president on the most important technology issues.
According to CNBC, Huang is also expected to attend next week’s official state dinner that Trump is hosting for Xi Jinping, China’s president.
Huang’s stances also align with those of David Sacks, the venture investor and Trump’s former adviser on AI and cryptocurrencies. Sacks is one of the hosts of the “All-In” podcast, which organized Monday’s event and facilitated Trump’s phone call with Huang.
On the day of the meeting, Trump wrote in a post on the social network Truth Social that the only control or “guardrail” needed for AI is a strong and smart president - which he said the U.S. has.
According to the report, Trump and Huang have appeared together at least six times in public events since the start of his second term; including trips to Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom and a recent trip to China aboard the presidential aircraft (Air Force One).