Trump bought Nvidia shares while easing chip export rules that benefited the company, analysis finds
Financial disclosures show Donald Trump purchased millions of dollars in Nvidia stock around decisions to loosen restrictions on advanced chip sales to China, according to an anti-corruption group.
By Olga Menon ·
Donald Trump purchased Nvidia stock worth millions of dollars while making decisions on United States policy toward China that stood to benefit the chipmaker, an analysis has found.
In May 2025, the Trump administration rescinded a rule put in place under Joe Biden that was designed to stop the most advanced American-made artificial intelligence chips from being exported to China. The measure was intended to bolster the US chip industry and to guard against what was widely viewed as a national security risk: the possibility that China could develop superior AI.
In the days before the rule was withdrawn, Trump's public financial disclosures show he bought between $1m (£760,000) and $5m worth of Nvidia stock, according to an analysis by the anti-corruption group DeKleptocracy. He also purchased shares in other technology companies, among them Apple, Meta and Microsoft.
The rescinded measure, known as the diffusion rule, would have restricted Nvidia's access to what has been one of its biggest markets. China accounted for roughly a quarter of the company's sales between 2010 and 2022. Nvidia's share price climbed shortly after Trump announced the rule was being scrapped, a rise that came after he had bought the stock.
In December 2025, Trump said he would permit Nvidia to sell its H200 chips to China, a decision the Department of Commerce approved in January 2026. The move proved controversial. Experts said the H200 was one of the company's most advanced chips, six times better than anything available in China at the time. The Council on Foreign Relations warned that selling the chips would "supercharge" China's future AI factories and strengthen America's rival.
Trump's disclosures indicate that in the days after that announcement he made at least three more purchases of Nvidia shares, each valued between $250,001 and $500,000. Those trades rank among his larger purchases of the stock, though he appears to have made dozens of transactions involving the chipmaker's shares since taking office.
"While the country debates how a possible Chinese spy may have manipulated White House policy for one AI company, it must grapple with how Trump's corruption may have motivated him to deliver the entire AI industry's technology to China," DeKleptocracy wrote in its analysis.
The US, and the wider global economy, have been reckoning with revelations that Jensen Huang, Nvidia's former chief executive, had an affair with an alleged Chinese spy, Alice Huang. Reports have suggested the relationship enabled Alice Huang's company, Megaspeed, to obtain billions of dollars worth of Nvidia chips even as other companies struggled to secure them.
Trump was twice briefed by US intelligence officials on their conclusion that Alice Huang was a Chinese asset. He did not act on that assessment.
Jensen Huang has been described as a close ally of Trump and has met the president on a number of occasions. In October 2025, Nvidia contributed $25m to Trump's ballroom project, with Huang saying he was "delighted to be a part of it".
