On Tuesday night, President Trump made a last-minute change of heart and invited Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to join him on Air Force One to China. Huang had originally been excluded from the trip over fears that selling advanced chips to China would trigger a domestic backlash.
According to people familiar with the matter, Trump saw reports that Huang wasn't coming and called him Tuesday morning to extend the invitation. Huang then flew to Alaska to meet up with Air Force One. The White House also invited executives from Micron, Qualcomm, Coherent, and Illumina along for the ride.
Nvidia's share of the data center computing market in China has plummeted from a dominant 90% to zero. Huang's last-minute addition is a key test of whether Nvidia can break the regulatory deadlock and claw its way back into the Chinese market. But the move faces steep political headwinds: just this week, a House committee advanced legislation that would give lawmakers the power to review and block critical chip sales to China, and Republican hawks are fiercely opposed to loosening restrictions.