Jensen Huang secured Trump’s approval for Nvidia to sell H200 chips to China with a 25% US cut
The rise of Jensen Huang inside Washington power circles has turned into one of the wildest shifts in tech and politics this year.
The Nvidia co-founder, once barely known in the capital, now sits at the center of a deal that could channel billions of dollars back to the $4 trillion chip giant. The White House approved exports of Nvidia’s advanced H200 chips to China, a move pushed through by Jensen after direct talks with Donald Trump. The US gets a 25% cut of the sales.
Trump had once said he had “never heard” of Nvidia or Jensen, yet he overruled members of his own MAGA coalition to clear the path for the company.
Competitors are trying to understand how a soft-spoken engineer gained this level of access. One person familiar with Nvidia’s strategy allegedly said, “I think game recognises game,” adding that the president’s control style “is effectively the way that Jensen runs Nvidia. There are no fiefdoms… and Jensen’s instincts kind of reign.”
Jensen expands access and builds leverage
Jensen did not spend much time in Washington before this year. People close to Nvidia say he questioned the “value proposition” of getting close to Trump after the November election.
A source said Jensen “remembered enough from Trump 1 to know that he is mercurial as hell and you can’t really buy stability.” Others said he wanted to help the administration understand the artificial intelligence sector. While tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos attended Trump’s inauguration, Jensen stayed in Taiwan, celebrating the Lunar New Year with employees.
His early entry to Trump’s circle came through Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Jensen said Lutnick opened their first talk with, “Jensen… I just want to let you know that you’re a national treasure, and Nvidia is a national treasure. And whenever you need access to the president, the administration, you call us.”
Jensen said on a podcast that it was “completely true… they were always available.” Nvidia’s profile in Washington grew fast as the White House restricted exports of its H20 chips to China. That rule was part of Trump’s wider conflict with Beijing. To align with Trump’s demands for more US manufacturing, Nvidia joined a consortium pledging to invest half a trillion dollars domestically over four years.
In April, Jensen flew to Mar-a-Lago and met Trump on the sidelines of a $1 million per head dinner. The administration eased some of its limits in the months that followed.Jensen kept a heavy schedule with Trump, meeting him privately at least six times and speaking to him directly on the phone.
Jensen also traveled with the president to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the UK. He stood beside him at the White House AI Action Plan summit in July, where Trump said, “What a job you’ve done, man.” In October, Jensen contributed to a ballroom project for the president.
Jensen pushes Congress and shapes the export fight
Jensen’s push in Washington widened beyond the White House. He argued to lawmakers that banning US chip sales to Chinese AI developers would not stop their progress but would push China’s chipmakers to catch up.
At a House foreign affairs committee hearing in May, he said Nvidia’s absence meant “competitors like Huawei [were] already stepping in.”Nvidia’s China teams conducted their own research on chipmaking rivals to support the company’s case.
Nvidia focused on educating policymakers and that its predictions on China’s capabilities “were often proved accurate.”
Nvidia’s advocacy on Capitol Hill was led by Tim Teter, the company’s top legal executive and a trusted adviser to Jensen. Nvidia avoided big industry associations and hired a Republican lobbyist who once worked for Ivanka Trump. A senior lobbyist said, “They had a one-person shop that didn’t lobby, and now have a much larger team.”
The company’s arguments stayed centered on exports. Since Nvidia sells hardware instead of building AI models like OpenAI, it did not have to answer for fears about job losses or kids’ mental health.
Jensen’s effort still met pushback. National security officials and think-tank researchers opposed Nvidia’s requests. Trump admitted that when he first heard about Nvidia’s market share, his instinct was to break up the company. Steve Bannon called the H200 deal proof that Trump was “badly advised.”
Democrats such as Senator Elizabeth Warren criticized Jensen for mostly meeting Republicans. A bill that could have restricted H20 exports was dropped, but a new bipartisan bill now aims to limit the administration’s power to approve Nvidia’s chip sales.
The first attempt to reopen H20 exports required Nvidia to hand the US a 15% cut, but Beijing pushed back against the lower-spec chips. Nvidia shifted to a plan to sell the more advanced H200 chips.
Jensen convinced the White House that keeping Nvidia dominant required wide global sales. Former national security adviser Robert O’Brien backed that message, saying the US market alone could not absorb chips from Nvidia, Intel, and AMD.
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