"Jensen Huang Also Heads to China" Joins Trump’s Visit at the Last Minute

Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, made a last-minute addition to U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to China.

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On May 12 (local time), Bloomberg reported that CEO Huang boarded Air Force One—the presidential aircraft—at Alaska International Airport, heading to Beijing, China.

According to Bloomberg, citing sources, President Trump called CEO Huang that morning to invite him to join the official delegation. Subsequently, CEO Huang traveled to Anchorage to meet Air Force One at the scheduled stopover. NVIDIA stated in a press release, "CEO Jensen Huang is attending the summit at President Trump's invitation to support the goals of the United States and the administration."

The previously announced U.S. delegation accompanying President Trump to China included Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX; Tim Cook, CEO of Apple; Kelly Ortberg, CEO of Boeing; as well as the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, BlackRock, and Citigroup; and Dina Powell McCormick, President of Meta, among a total of 16 economic envoys. CEO Jensen Huang was not originally included on the list.

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Some observers had interpreted the absence of CEO Jensen Huang from the delegation as a deliberate signal from the United States to China. The exclusion of CEO Huang was seen as a message that the U.S. would not make AI semiconductor chips a subject of negotiation at the summit.

Ryan Fedasiuk, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), commented, "This sends a strong signal to the Chinese government," adding, "The Trump administration understands how crucial computing power is to winning the AI race against China." He went on to say, "In reality, there is little that American semiconductor companies can discuss directly with the Chinese government."