President Trump welcomed Jensen Huang, CEO of chip giant Nvidia, on Air Force One late Tuesday as he headed to Beijing for a summit with the Chinese leader.
Mr. Huang, who heads the world’s most valuable company, was omitted from the list of business executives who planned to travel to China. But after seeing reports that Mr. Huang would not be coming, Mr. Trump called him on Tuesday morning and invited him, a person familiar with the call said.
Mr. Huang flew to Alaska late Tuesday and boarded Air Force One during a layover. It has been lobbying officials in Washington and Beijing for nearly a year to allow Nvidia to sell its artificial intelligence chips to China.
“Jensen is currently on Air Force One,” Trump said in a social media post. He said he was honored that Nvidia’s CEO, whom he called “The Great Jensen Huang,” and other business leaders “are traveling to the Great Land of China, where I will ask President Xi, a leader of extraordinary acclaim, to ‘open up’ China so that these brilliant people can work their magic.”
On Monday, the White House released a list of 16 CEOs, including Apple’s Tim Cook, BlackRock’s Larry Fink and leaders of other companies pushing deals with China. It did not include Mr. Huang.
This omission was noted across Silicon Valley and Washington. Mr. Huang has forged a strong relationship with Mr. Trump, acting as a liaison for the administration between Washington and Beijing. His company’s chips have been critical to the artificial intelligence boom that is reshaping the global economy and are coveted by governments and companies around the world.
The sale of AI chips to China has been controversial in Washington.
Last summer, Mr. Trump approved the sale of older generation Nvidia chips to China and planned to reduce those sales. But the Chinese government did not approve any purchases.
Some Republicans have backed legislation to limit the scope of those sales, and last year members of Mr. Trump’s own administration intervened to dissuade him from allowing the sale of even more advanced AI chips on national security grounds.
