WASHINGTON—Many tech executives warned last year that a flurry of state laws creating new artificial-intelligence regulations threatened to set the U.S. back in the AI race, but it was Jensen Huang who helped spur President Trump to act.Jensen Huang (REUTERS)During a meeting in the Oval Office late last year, the Nvidia chief executive told a small group including then-chief of staff Susie Wiles and White House AI adviser David Sacks that Trump needed to take action to prevent a burdensome patchwork, according to people familiar with the matter. Shortly afterward, Trump fired off a post on Truth Social and signed an executive order attacking states enacting AI rules.That heavy influence is attracting fresh scrutiny following the president’s decision to stand by the CEO despite multiple affairs.

Lawmakers are seeking more information about what Trump knew about the relationship between Jensen Huang and Alice Huang, the Nvidia business partner suspected of working for Chinese intelligence, as well as the administration’s failure to stop artificial-intelligence chips from going to China.More than almost any CEO, Huang helped shape the president’s AI strategy and was involved in chip deals and state visits all over the world.WSJ reporters Bob McMillan and Amrith Ramkumar discuss how Jensen Huang quickly became a key advisor on critical chip export policy for Trump, and maintained his trust amid regulatory scrutiny. Evan Vucci/Reuters“This entire episode demonstrates the dangers of personalizing policy decisions, especially when it comes to national security,” said Aaron Bartnick, a White House tech policy official during the Biden administration.The White House declined to comment on Trump’s relationship with Huang.From the first time they met in January 2025, the president was taken by Huang’s charisma and success building the chip designer into the dominant player in its industry, people familiar with the matter said.

Trump often referenced Huang’s genius and role in keeping the U.S. ahead of China in the artificial-intelligence race, calling him at night to consult him on major policy decisions, they said.Trump frequently overruled administration officials who raised concerns about Huang and didn’t take action when top advisers circulated a classified memo this spring laying out worries that the CEO had a close relationship with an alleged Chinese intelligence source. At Huang’s urging, he approved several deals to send Nvidia chips to China and other countries posing security concerns and enacted an industry-friendly AI strategy that has helped many of the companies Nvidia does business with.

Nvidia in turn agreed to invest $500 billion in the U.S. to help build a domestic chip ecosystem, committed $25 million for the White House ballroom and lauded Trump’s moves to slash red tape.‘Was the woman a spy?’Administration officials are now racing to blame each other for not cracking down on chip deals involving executives like Alice Huang. Many are targeting Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose agency oversees export restrictions, while observers and lawmakers question the president’s loyalty to the former CEO.In addition to tracking Alice Huang, U.S. intelligence officials collected information on Chinese businesses and their leaders and through that process learned about their connections to Jensen Huang, people familiar with the matter said.Jensen Huang met with business leaders and officials in China on his visits and associated with many Nvidia customers in Southeast Asia.

Intelligence officials haven’t definitively proven Alice Huang is a spy, the people said, but her position at Megaspeed—and Chinese industry’s ties to Beijing’s security state—worried U.S. intelligence officials about the possibility of her sharing Jensen Huang-related information to Chinese spy agencies.Attempts to reach Alice Huang were unsuccessful.Top Democrats are pursuing investigations into the Commerce Department’s handling of chip exports as well as the relationship between Trump and Huang, asking the White House to preserve all communications between the two.“It is not just an intelligence issue; it’s also a potential corruption issue,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) said earlier this week. “There needs to be a really penetrating, comprehensive investigation of all the possible compromises of our intelligence that may have occurred, but also… that Donald Trump is so high on the head of Nvidia, and now is potentially linked to intelligence compromises.”Asked on TV personality Stephen A.

Smith’s podcast Thursday whether Huang should have stepped down, the president sighed, then said, “Well, the big thing is, ‘Was the woman a spy?’ And I don’t know if that’s been determined yet, but if the woman was a spy, yes,” Trump said. “If the woman was not a spy, perhaps it would be different.”Trump said he spoke to Huang on Wednesday. “He’s going through hell,” the president said. “What he feels most badly about is his wife and family.”‘Taking over the world’When other top tech CEOs were standing behind Trump at his second inauguration in January 2025, Huang was noticeably absent. He hadn’t spent much time in Washington during Trump’s first term and had only become a titan in the industry over the past few years following the release of ChatGPT and other popular AI models that ran on Nvidia chips.Later that month, Huang scored a meeting with the president at the White House after Trump’s advisers told him about Nvidia’s importance to the economy.Once he learned more, Trump questioned how Nvidia could hold such a large share of the chip design market, wondering whether he could break up the company or create more competition, he said at a White House AI event in July 2025. “I found out it’s not that easy in that business,” the president said before asking Jensen to stand up in the front row of Mellon Auditorium surrounded by administration officials.Trump took Huang to the Middle East in May on the first trip of his second term, and eventually agreed to let him send chips directly to China later in the year.

Trump then took Huang to the U.K. in September 2025 as part of the global tour that turned the CEO into the industry’s de facto diplomat. U.S. negotiators used the promise of Nvidia AI chips to help secure a preliminary peace deal last year with Armenia and Azerbaijan, one of several examples of so-called chip diplomacy.“You’re taking over the world,” Trump told Huang during an event in the U.K.Trump scooped up millions of dollars worth of Nvidia shares in his personal brokerage accounts since returning to office in 2025.

At least a third of the companies backed by 1789 Capital, a venture firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, have also secured investments from Nvidia, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of their investment portfolios.A 1789 spokeswoman said that the firm has never communicated about an investment with Nvidia, save for Reflection AI, in which the two co-led a funding round. She said that Trump Jr. isn’t a member of the firm’s investment committee and doesn’t vote on how the firm allocates capital.

The president doesn’t pick or trade individual stocks and independent financial managers handle his portfolio, a White House spokesperson said.Warning signsBy the spring, national security adviser Marco Rubio had overseen the drafting of a classified memo detailing salacious concerns that Alice Huang was suspected of being a Chinese spy. After Trump had been briefed verbally on Huang’s ties to Alice Huang and found out the Nvidia CEO wasn’t joining his trip to China, he asked the Nvidia CEO to meet Air Force One in Alaska, U.S. officials said.Rubio briefed the president on the plane before they picked up Jensen Huang, according to people familiar with the matter.

The New York Times previously reported on the trip details. In September, Jensen Huang and his wife were at the head table with other executives for Trump’s state dinner with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.Huang was on stage at a live taping of the “All-In” podcast in Los Angeles in September, when his phone rang.

It was Trump, who wanted to talk about how recent hacks and concerns about AI models carrying out cyberattacks were “a hoax.”Before Trump could talk to the audience, Huang struggled to put him on speakerphone.“The great thing about life is that Jensen can develop the most complex computer chip in the world that nobody can copy for 10 years, but he can’t figure out how to put me on speaker,” Trump said.In early October, Trump presented Huang with the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest scientific honor, while praising Huang for putting America at the front of the AI race.At the end of the ceremony with other tech executives, Trump met Huang’s parents, who moved to the U.S. from Taiwan. Huang’s mom has trouble walking, so Trump helped her off the stage.

Huang took a photo with his parents while wearing his new medal following his last public appearance with Trump, later saying “it’s their American dream.”Exactly a month after the ceremony, Nvidia’s board launched the investigation that helped lead to Huang’s ouster.Write to Amrith Ramkumar at amrith.ramkumar@wsj.com, Brian Schwartz at brian.schwartz@wsj.com, Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com and Rolfe Winkler at Rolfe.Winkler@wsj.com