The News
In the fall of 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was riding high on the wave of the AI boom. He also landed at the center of an ideological war over chip exports that the $4 trillion company and its allies now think played a pivotal role in his undoing.
On one side were the China hawks inside the Trump administration — and circling outsiders — who worried Huang’s chips were helping fuel China’s AI ambitions. On the other side were Huang, David Sacks, and other technologists that argued, often in their own self-interest, for spreading US tech around the globe to ensure American-backed AI became the world standard.
Huang’s long-held, pro-trade views were already unpopular with many of the think tankers, academics, national security staffers, and US government officials that make up a loosely held group of anti-China ideologues. But in a podcast interview with influential venture capitalists Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner, Huang took things further, arguing the term “China hawk” is a badge of “shame” and that those who wear it are not “patriotic.”
The slight did not go unnoticed, drawing the ire of anti-technology voices like far-right podcast host Steve Bannon and other critics who had railed against Huang’s lobbying against strict China export controls.
