Chips & Hardware
Huang's foldable phone steals a moment from his Trump call
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang used a foldable phone — not Apple's "iPhone Duo," as an earlier report mistakenly identified it — to take a live call from President Trump at the All-In conference in Los Angeles.
Jensen Huang made headlines Monday at the All-In conference in Los Angeles when President Trump called him live onstage. But another detail from his appearance drew attention: Huang, dressed in his now-signature alligator leather jacket, was handed a foldable phone to answer the call. An earlier version of this story misidentified the device as Apple’s “iPhone Duo”; that was incorrect, and references to it have been removed.
Once Huang got Trump on speaker, their conversation turned to AI safety, and the two appeared to agree that mounting fears about AI amount to what Trump called a “hoax.” Trump argued that the real winners of AI panic are China and “political people,” and that the technology is too significant — “bigger than the internet,” he said — to slow down over.
Whether Huang genuinely shares that view, or simply isn’t in a position to say otherwise, is unclear. Nvidia’s business model depends heavily on AI labs buying more chips, so downplaying existential risk aligns with protecting the company’s share price, which is still up 33% for the past year but fell a few percentage points on the day of the call.
Why it matters
The moment underscores how closely Nvidia’s public messaging on AI safety tracks its commercial incentives, a dynamic worth watching as the AI-safety debate intensifies ahead of expected industry IPOs.