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President Donald Trump revealed Wednesday that he once considered breaking up Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) to increase competition in the artificial intelligence chip market, before realizing “it’s not easy in that business.”
“I said, ‘Look, we’ll break this guy up,’ before I learned the facts here,” Trump said at an AI summit in Washington, noting that aides had informed him the move would be “very hard” given Nvidia’s substantial lead over competitors. “I figured we could go in and we could sort of break them up a little bit, get them a little competition, and I found out it’s not easy in that business,” he added.
The DOJ had launched an antitrust probe into Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) in 2024.
Trump also praised Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who was in attendance. “What a job you’ve done,” he said. Huang, who met Trump at the White House earlier this month, called Trump “America’s unique advantage” during his own remarks.
Trump’s comments come as Nvidia recently regained approval to sell AI chips to China amid a broader trade truce. At the event, Trump also unveiled an “AI Action Plan” aimed at easing regulatory hurdles for the industry.