Chamath Palihapitiya, known as the “SPAC King,” has voiced concerns over Nvidia Corporation’s NVDA and accused the company of not acting in the best interest of the U.S.
What Happened: In an episode of the All-In Podcast that was released over the weekend, Palihapitiya criticized Nvidia for its alleged efforts to bypass U.S. export controls, which were designed to limit China’s access to cutting-edge AI chips.
“How is it that Alibaba shows up with something incredible, DeepSeek shows up with something better,” Palihapitiya asked, indicating that Nvidia’s chips may be finding their way into Chinese hands.
He noted that after the U.S. banned the sale of top-tier GPUs like the A100 and H100 to China, Nvidia quickly rolled out slightly modified versions — the A800 and H800 — which reduced data transfer speeds just enough to meet export rules, while still offering strong performance.
Nvidia also introduced the H20 chip, specifically designed for the Chinese market to comply with updated U.S. regulations, yet still delivering significant computing power, Palihaptiya said.
“You have a 2017 plan that they’ve been executing against, which is to say, we want to dominate this space. And you have an American company that has been working around the guidelines at every turn to try to land silicon into the hands of China,” the billionaire investor said.
White House-appointed ‘AI and Crypto Czar’ David Sacks echoed Palihapitiya’s concerns, pointing out the growing issue of export controls evasion.
Sacks highlighted an incident involving Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd TSM, which faced fines for circumventing export restrictions.
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Nvidia did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comments.
Why It’s Important: Palihapitiya’s statements are part of a broader debate on U.S.-China relations and the control of AI technologies.
The White House has imposed an indefinite export ban on Nvidia’s H20 chips to China, prompting the company to warn of a potential $5.5 billion hit to its quarterly revenue, according to a recent filing.
Notably, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was on a high-level tour of China last week.
In February, reports revealed that Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings TCEHY, Alibaba Group BABA, and ByteDance significantly increased their orders for Nvidia’s H20 AI chips, spurred by the rise of DeepSeek’s cost-efficient AI models.
DeepSeek’s R1 model, reportedly developed for less than $6 million, has outperformed top U.S. models—including those from OpenAI.
Price Action: Nvidia shares have fallen 26.67% year-to-date but remain up 27.55% over the past 12 months, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings gives Nvidia a strong growth score of 94.80%. Click here to see how it stacks up against TSMC, Alibaba, Tencent, and other major tech players.
Photo Courtesy: Kathy Hutchins on Shutterstock.com
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