Trump ‘saved AI industry’, says Jensen Huang amid reported meeting between US President and Nvidia CEO

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Wednesday said US President Donald Trump's pro-growth energy policies "saved the AI industry."

Speaking on an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the Nvidia chief “flat out” said the current growth of the AI industry in the US would not have been possible without Trump's policies.

“…And the fact that he [Trump] came into office and the first thing that he said was ‘drill, baby, drill’. The point is we need energy growth. Without energy growth, we can have no industrial growth. And that was…it saved the AI industry,” Huang told host Joe Rogan.

Having used the ‘drill, baby, drill’ phrase throughout his 2024 Presidential Campaign, Trump in his 2025 inaugural address famously repeated the phrase, signalling a return to fossil fuels and energy dominance and a complete U-turn from the Joe Biden administration's clean energy and climate transition-oriented policies.

“I got to tell you flat out, if not for his [Trump's] pro-growth energy policies, we would not be able to build factories for AI, we'd not be able to build chip factories. We surely wouldn't be able to build supercomputer factories, none of that stuff would have been possible,” the Nvidia CEO added.

His comments came in the context of energy needs for industrial growth, and in turn, job growth.

Asked by host Rogan about whether the US winning the AI race was of national security importance, the Nvidia CEO said, “I'm not sure... I don't think anybody, I don't think anybody really knows.”

Beyond praising the US President's energy dominance-focused policies, Huang also said that Trump was more than just “negative stories”.

"You could tell his love for America, what he wants to do for America," the Nvidia CEO said, adding, “And everything that he thinks through is very practical and very common sense, and, you know, it's very logical.”

Trump-Huang meeting?

Separately, a CBS reporter said that Trump had met with Huang on Wednesday regarding export controls, without furnishing further details.

Huang was in Washington DC for a meeting with US lawmakers, where he told them that state-by-state regulations would slow the progress of AI development, as per CNBC.

The reported meeting between the US President and the Nvidia chief comes amid differences in opinion about excessive export restrictions on advanced AI chips.

Earlier in October, Huang had called for a more “nuanced” approach to regulation, saying that Trump's trade policies intended to harm China could also backfire on the US, sometimes “even in worse ways”.

At the time, Huang was commenting on the share of Nvidia chips in the Chinese market dipping from 95% to 0%.

Subsequently in November, the Nvidia chief went on to say that China was “nanoseconds” away from winning the AI race.

“China is nanoseconds behind America in AI. It's vital that America wins by racing ahead and winning developers worldwide,” the Nvidia CEO had said.