Jensen Huang joins Trump’s China trip after the U.S. president called the Nvidia CEO

BEIJING — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has joined U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to China, after initial indications the executive had not been invited.

After seeing the media coverage of Huang’s absence from the delegation, Trump called the Nvidia executive and asked him to join, a source familiar with the situation told CNBC.

Huang flew to Alaska to board Air Force One, the source said.

Trump is bringing more than a dozen U.S. executives to Beijing this week where he is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping Thursday and Friday.

“Jensen is attending the summit at the invitation of President Trump to support America and the administration’s goals,” a spokesperson for the chip giant said in a statement. Nvidia referred to the same comment when asked about Huang joining mid-journey in Alaska, but did not provide a reason.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a social media post, Trump confirmed Huang was on board Air Force One and denied that the Nvidia boss had not been invited, as reported by media outlets including CNBC. He added that opening up China for U.S. businesses would be his “first request” to Xi.

“I will be asking President Xi, a Leader of extraordinary distinction, to ‘open up’ China so that these brilliant people can work their magic, and help bring the People’s Republic to an even higher level!” Trump said, referring to the wider delegation of U.S. business representatives.

Nvidia’s most advanced chips, widely used for training AI models, have faced tighter U.S. restrictions on China sales over the last four years. The company said in February that U.S.-government-approved versions of the chips had yet to be allowed into China.

China has sought to build its own chips, and create AI models such as DeepSeek that do not rely on Nvidia. An article earlier this month in the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s official journal noted that local companies had to slow their development due to U.S. chip restrictions, while highlighting Nvidia’s dominance in the market for global graphics processing units.

“I still believe that we are far away from a deal on export controls … it’s positive that he’s there and he’s part of the President’s delegation, and that that that’s important for him and it’s important for the President,” Carlos Gutierrez, former U.S. secretary of commerce, told “Squawk Box Asia.”