Trump Wanted Jensen Out, and Out He Goes

Opinion · Markets

Most coverage treats Jensen Huang’s fall as a scandal about one man. We see the last act of a story that began in January 2025: a President who wanted a different Nvidia, settled for a cut of it, and watched his family’s fund buy into the AI boom around it.

Act I: “We’ll break this guy up”

On July 23, 2025, at an AI summit in Washington with Huang in the audience, Trump told a story about his first instinct on Nvidia. “Look, we’ll break this guy up,” he said he told his advisers. Told that Nvidia had “100 percent” of its market, he asked: “What the hell is Nvidia? I’ve never heard of it before.” The idea was to “break them up a little bit, get them a little competition.” The answer came back that it “would take at least 10 years to catch him, if he ran Nvidia totally incompetently from now on.” Only then did he change his tune: “And then I got to know Jensen, and now I see why.”

At the time it was reported as an anecdote. We read it as a plan. The President’s first move on the most important company in AI was to cut its founder down to size. He never dated the conversation, but he placed it before he “got to know Jensen,” and the two first met at the White House on January 31, 2025, eleven days into his term. Ten weeks later, the administration required licenses for Nvidia’s H20 chip sales to China, and Nvidia flagged a $5.5 billion charge. In our view, Plan A failed for a simple reason: there was nobody to hand Nvidia’s market to.

The Intel template

Look at what the President did that summer with another chip company. On August 7, 2025, he posted that Intel’s chief executive, Lip-Bu Tan, was “highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately.” Tan stayed and met Trump on August 11. On August 22, the government took 9.9% of Intel for $8.9 billion. At the November 12, 2026 close, those shares were worth about $26.5 billion.

That is the playbook: go after the boss, and if the boss survives, take a stake. Nvidia got the same treatment, paid in a different currency.

Act II: Take a cut

On August 11, 2025, the day Tan visited the White House, Trump announced that Nvidia would pay the government 15% of its H20 chip sales to China. He had asked for more. “I want 20% if I’m going to approve this for you,” he said he told Huang, who talked him down. In December, the more powerful H200 was cleared for China with a 25% cut. Nvidia had already given $1 million to the inauguration fund, and it reportedly gave $25 million toward the President’s White House ballroom. In September 2025, a month after Washington bought into Intel, Nvidia bought $5 billion of Intel stock as well, and Intel had its best day since 1987.

Trump could not break Huang, so he made him a partner, on Washington’s terms.

The family’s share

Our view is that, since taking office, Trump has wanted his family to share in the industries of the future: crypto, quantum computing and AI. The record shows that it does. His 2025 financial disclosure showed more than $1 billion of income from the family’s crypto ventures. In AI, the vehicle is 1789 Capital, the venture firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner. Its assets grew from $200 million to $3.5 billion in about a year, according to the Financial Times.

Follow its bets and you keep running into Nvidia. In September 2025, 1789 invested in Groq, an AI-chip startup, at a $6.9 billion valuation, and in Cerebras, which builds chips to compete with Nvidia’s. Three months later, Nvidia agreed to pay about $20 billion for Groq’s chips and top people, the biggest deal in its history. Axios reported that most Groq shareholders would be paid out at the $20 billion valuation, about 2.9 times the valuation of the round 1789 had joined. Cerebras listed on Nasdaq in May 2026. That same month, the Commerce Department agreed to take equity stakes in nine quantum computing companies, among them PsiQuantum, another 1789 holding.

Whatever Nvidia’s reasons for the Groq deal, the result is on the record. The biggest company in AI paid Washington a cut of its China sales, and it paid out a startup whose investors included the President’s son’s firm.

Act III: Keep him close

The file arrived in the fall of 2025. According to the New York Times and ABC News, Trump was briefed that Huang was involved with Alice Huang (no relation), an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore data-center company, whom US intelligence officials believe was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security. Commerce agents had been investigating Megaspeed for suspected chip smuggling since 2024. In August 2025, the Times reports, Nvidia’s general counsel emailed those agents with permission from a senior Commerce official, and the probe halted late that year. Commerce says nobody interfered. Officials chose not to warn Huang, for fear of tipping off Alice Huang.

Instead, the President kept him close. In March 2026 he appointed Huang to his science and technology council. On May 12, Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed Trump about the relationship aboard Air Force One, and soon afterward Huang boarded the same plane in Anchorage for the trip to China. In October, Trump handed him a national medal.

Our reading: for a year, the White House held a file that could end Huang’s career while it took a cut of his company’s China sales. A file like that is leverage, whether or not anyone plans to use it. Days after the story broke, The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian gave it a name: “Trump SCREWS OVER Jensen Huang.”

Act IV: Let him go

The Times story ran on October 29, five days before the midterms. On November 3, Democrats won the House and the Senate. From January they will run the committees, and they are already vying to lead the Nvidia probes. On November 8, Huang admitted he had been unfaithful to his wife. Asked whether Huang should stay as CEO, Trump said: “I think so. Oh yeah, sure.” Within days he was also telling reporters that “the FBI is looking into it.” On November 11, the Times reported a second relationship, with an executive who reported to Huang, and the board accepted his resignation. It was announced the next day.

Within hours, Trump posted his pick for the job: “there is only one man to take his place – TIM COOK of Apple.” He added: “A Legend replaces a Legend!” Cook is the executive who, in August 2025, gave the President a glass plaque on a 24-karat gold base in the Oval Office.

The President’s defense of Huang lasted four days. His succession plan took a few hours.

Not all of Nvidia’s slide was about Huang. After the midterms, investors sold AI stocks on fears that the new Congress would slow data-center building, and on November 5 the S&P 500 fell 4.4% while Nvidia fell 9.3%. But look at November 9, the first trading day after Huang’s admission: Nvidia fell 4.3% while the S&P 500 rose 2.3%, AMD 13.3% and Broadcom 8.8%. From October 28 to November 12, AMD and Broadcom finished higher. Nvidia lost 22.8%.

Where we could be wrong

We said we might be wrong. This is the case against us.

• Trump’s public words backed Huang to the end. We are reading motive into actions.
• “Break this guy up” was a story about competition, and Trump ended it by praising Huang.
• The board’s trigger, a relationship with a direct report, breaks the rules at most listed companies on its own.
• There is no public evidence that the White House pushed Nvidia’s board.
• The family’s AI bets are not a one-way ticket. Cerebras closed on November 12 at $97.75, down 69% from its first-day close in May. 1789’s stakes are not public, and a source told the Washington Post that Trump Jr. does not sit on the firm’s investment committee.
• The story broke five days before an election the President’s party lost badly. The timing did him no favors.

What it means for markets

The short run

• A quarter without a captain. Nvidia reports results on November 17 under interim CEO Colette Kress, its CFO since 2013, and lawmakers question Huang behind closed doors on November 18. A board investigation, federal inquiries and a shareholder lawsuit are still running.
• Index exposure. Nvidia is one of the largest weights in the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100, so its swings pass straight through index funds and the AI trade, from chip suppliers in Taiwan and South Korea to the cloud companies that buy its systems.
• Subpoenas. From January, a Democratic Congress can subpoena the records behind every deal in this story: the China chip cuts, the ballroom money and the halted Megaspeed probe.

The long run

1. White House risk is now company risk. Washington owns 9.9% of Intel, has claimed a cut of Nvidia’s China chip sales and has agreed to buy into quantum startups. When access to the President is part of the business model, a change in his mood, or in Congress, is a change in the cash flows. We expect investors to start pricing a “White House beta” into any company that needs Washington’s licenses or money.
2. China policy is likely to tighten. Huang was Washington’s loudest voice for selling chips to China. Without him, bipartisan bills such as the Chip Security Act, the AI Overwatch Act and the MATCH Act may gain ground. Senator Jim Banks says Trump “wants to prohibit advanced Nvidia Blackwell chips from going to China.” Tighter rules would weigh on US chipmakers’ China revenue and could speed China’s push for its own chips.
3. Key-person risk gets repriced. Markets treated Huang as part of Nvidia’s moat. Its products, customers and CUDA software do not leave with him, but the vision and the Washington relationships might. Other founder-led giants carry the same exposure.
4. The challengers get an opening. AMD and Broadcom rose while Nvidia fell. The list of challengers also includes Cerebras, which the President’s son’s firm has backed.

The bottom line

Trump wanted a different Nvidia from the start. He couldn’t break it, so he took a cut, kept its founder close and let his family’s fund buy into the AI boom around it. When the file finally came out, his defense of Huang lasted four days. We might be wrong about the motive. We don’t think we are wrong about the pattern, and investors in AI are likely to be pricing it for years.

This is an opinion piece reflecting the views of StreetBriefs’ editors, based on public reporting as of November 13, 2026. The story is still developing. The allegations about Alice Huang are unproven; China denies them, and Megaspeed denies smuggling chips. Share prices are Yahoo Finance daily closes to November 12, 2026; data may be delayed or contain errors. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security. Do your own research and consult a licensed financial adviser before making investment decisions.