Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was on stage at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles on Monday morning when he received a call that couldn’t be sent to voicemail. It was from President Donald Trump.
“I’m on stage with some of my best friends,” Huang told Trump, referring to the venture capitalists who host the “All-In” podcast, including tech investors Chamath Palihapitiya and Jason Karakanis, and White House advisers David Friedberg and David Sachs.
In a move that will cause night terrors for public relations professionals around the world, Mr. Hwang flaunted his comfort with the president by having Mr. Trump on the speaker for conference attendees to hear.
“The great thing in life is that Jensen can develop the most complex computer chip in the world…but he doesn’t know how to get you on the speaker,” Trump said on the phone. (Fans probably know how speakerphones work; they asked stagehands for additional microphones to relay calls to the audience.)
On stage, Huang and All In organizers discussed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call to “slow down the pace of AI improvement.” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have publicly said they agree with Amodei, but Huang has a different view.
“They’re just playing into the hands of a lot of people who don’t want that to happen,” Trump said. “It could be politicians, it could be China. And we’re not going to tolerate that. This is a hoax.”
“That’s right. We won’t allow that, sir,” Mr. Huang replied, and the audience erupted in applause.
President Trump and his allies, including Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, have expressed the belief that the growing sentiment against building data centers is part of an international psychological operation aimed at curbing U.S. economic growth. But the cause of public concern is much simpler. A recent Gallup poll found that 7 in 10 Americans oppose the construction of data centers in their area, and more than 50% of respondents cited the impact data centers would have on environmental resources. Approximately 20% said they were concerned about the increased cost of living and the impact on their quality of life.
“We have to be a little bit careful… We have to do things and we have to do them carefully, but that doesn’t mean we shut down industry,” Trump told Hwang. “So, I’m with you all the way. I didn’t even know how you felt about it. I was hoping you felt the same way I did. We’re going to lead.”
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