Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang paused a company all-hands meeting on Thursday to take a phone call from President Donald Trump, an unexpected moment that quickly became the talk of the chipmaker’s workforce.
Nvidia’s all-hands gatherings usually feature Huang presenting or fielding questions on stage before in-person staff at the company’s Santa Clara, California, headquarters, while thousands of remote employees watch a virtual livestream. During Thursday’s session, Huang received a call on his mobile phone and stepped aside to answer it.
Employees could clearly hear Trump’s distinctive voice through Huang’s onstage microphone, though the words themselves were not intelligible. Huang returned to the stage in under a minute and picked the meeting back up. A spokesperson for Nvidia declined to comment on the episode.
Trump Praises Nvidia’s Blockbuster Quarter
Later that day, Trump congratulated Huang in a social media post, calling Nvidia’s quarterly sales “incredible” and highlighting the company’s upbeat financial outlook for next year. On Wednesday, Nvidia reported second-quarter revenue of EUR 82 billion, a 106 percent jump from the same period a year earlier.
Huang frequently travels to Washington to lobby government officials on behalf of Nvidia’s interests, which center on selling chips and building AI infrastructure. He has met privately with Trump before, but the president’s direct call landed at a notable moment for the company.
A New PAC and a Major Acquisition
Earlier on Thursday, Nvidia announced a new employee-funded political action committee intended to donate to federal candidates as debate over AI policy intensifies. Nvidia and the Trump administration have not always aligned on how to regulate open AI models or govern sales of advanced chips to China.
Separately, Nvidia has agreed to acquire the open-source platform company Hugging Face, which distributes AI data sets, models, and development tools to software engineers building AI systems. The deal could be valued at more than EUR 11 billion, a figure that would almost certainly trigger merger review by U.S. antitrust regulators.
The combination of a record-setting earnings report, a newly formed PAC, and a multibillion-dollar acquisition places Nvidia at the center of both AI development and Washington policy discussions. Nvidia’s second-quarter revenue of EUR 82 billion marked a 106 percent year-over-year increase.
