In a surreal moment during the All-In Summit on Monday, President Donald Trump called Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and spent several minutes delivering a spirited defense of artificial intelligence while being broadcast over speakerphone to the audience. During the exchange, Trump dismissed widespread warnings about AI safety as a complete hoax, arguing that fears of robots taking over the world are merely conspiracies that play into the hands of political opponents and foreign adversaries like China. He insisted that the United States must aggressively pursue innovation to maintain its global edge, characterizing data centers as the new oil of the coming decades and claiming they will bring immense wealth to states and individuals alike.

The public nature of the call comes at a time of deep division within the tech community. While Trump describes safety concerns as a sick conspiracy, other prominent figures in the field are sounding alarms. Recently, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for stricter safeguards, a sentiment echoed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Tesla’s Elon Musk following reports that several top researchers have quit their jobs citing existential threats to humanity. Despite these warnings, Trump maintained during his chat with Huang that progress should move forward rapidly, though he did concede that developers should act prudently.

For his part, Jensen Huang appeared aligned with the president during the conversation, confirming he shared Trump’s vision for American dominance in the sector. This relationship is not entirely new; Huang serves on Trump’s council of science and technology advisers and has previously successfully lobbied the administration on local issues in San Francisco. However, there remains a tension between Huang’s desire to expand Nvidia’s global sales and certain lawmakers who fear such moves might inadvertently benefit China.

As the debate continues to brew in Washington, House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that industry leaders themselves should spearhead safety efforts rather than relying solely on government mandates. Sources indicate that a formal meeting between Trump and various AI executives is currently in the works to further coordinate strategy. When asked for official comment on the speakerphone incident or any upcoming meetings, Nvidia declined to provide details.