AI’s Ringmaster Loses the Circus
AI is a brand in crisis. The technology and those creating it have completely lost control of the narrative over the past couple of years to the point that they're now seen by many as the villain – quite literally in the eyes of Hollywood. This is particularly acute in the US, the epicenter of the movement, where data centers were on the ballot last week – and got decimated. The mere mention of the technology during commencement speeches gets booed. Headline after headline is about AI destroying jobs – if not the entire world. It's a nightmare scenario. And just when you think it can't possibly get any worse...
I've long believed a big part of the overall perception problem with AI is the messaging. It's not the only problem, of course, but the way the actual problems are being talked about is... well, less than desirable. And a big part of that lies at the feet of the messengers. Quite frankly, they suck at this. There is no Steve Jobs-like figure that can convey enthusiasm about the products in a way that gets the masses excited about the technology and what you can actually do with it.
Well, there was one such pitchman who was able to attract large crowds, even while talking about highly technical notions and capabilities. The audience would get excited in no small part because he was so clearly excited about the potential of the technology and what it meant for the future. And his company was the linchpin of the industry thanks to their chips and his foresight. And while they weren't exactly consumer-facing, they were starting to show signs of crossing over. The mantle seemed his to hold. He had grabbed the baton. The swagger stick, as the ringmaster of AI.
And then he decides to have sex with an alleged Chinese spy.
To be somewhat fair to Jensen Huang, he may not have known Alice Huang (no relation – has that phrase ever been written more in the past week?) was a spy. He apparently told President Trump he did not. And we don't know for sure that she is a spy – though the US State Department seems pretty certain, to the point where they've not only been investigating her, but apparently writing memos to the President and others with such information months ago.
Such details are almost incidental as it relates to the fact that nearly every headline about Jensen Huang right now contains the words "affair" and "spy".
It's both surreal and a real problem for him and by extension, the overall AI movement. Again, this was the de-facto leader. The person who commanded the respect and loyalty of every other major player in the industry. Even Apple, long an adversary of NVIDIA, eventually had to bend the knee to fix Siri. When there started to be some major pushback against "open" models – in no small part due to China's dominance of that particular market – who was there to rally the troops? Jensen Huang.
He's the main cheerleader for everyone from OpenClaw to OpenAI – even as the latter increasingly moves to compete with his company. Even Google, which is already fully competing with NVIDIA, is a big partner that gets love from Jensen (albeit sometimes begrudgingly). He was everywhere. And now he's lost.
Less a ringmaster, more a ringleader.
This is less a moral judgement – though I am compelled by Ben Thompson's notion in Stratechery that the same hubris (which you could fully see on display in a contentious interview with Dwarkesh Patel a few months ago) that drove his business success may have contributed to his personal failings here; "pride before the fall" and all that – and more a statement about the blow he has delivered to the industry.
Again, there was already a crisis, now the leader of the biggest and most important company in the industry just set himself on fire for all to see in the most spectacular and disastrous way imaginable.
I would use the Star Wars "you were the chosen one!" reference, but, well, I've already used that one. Still, Jensen Huang really was! As I wrote about the AI industry searching for their Steve Jobs almost a year ago:
Jensen Huang is probably the closest we actually have right now to Steve Jobs in terms of pure showmanship on stage. And NVIDIA's recent keynotes are testament to that. Even though such presentations should only be for the truly hardcore AI folks, Huang has turned them into must-watch events, and himself into a rockstar, leather coat and all, signing women's tops and all. And like Jobs back in the day, he's clearly in command of everything he's talking about, from the smallest details to the biggest picture. The one knock, beyond the political weirdness (such is our times, I suppose), is that NVIDIA is still so hardware-centric. Yes, so was Apple back in the day. And yes, there's CUDA. But still, it sort of feels like the main advocate for AI has to be someone whose company is focused on building the actual cutting edge models at least right now? Maybe not though! Or maybe not for long!
As they say, maybe there were signs...
Will any of this impact NVIDIA's sales? I mean probably not, because again, beyond graphics cards, end users typically don't buy NVIDIA's chips directly. And companies, even if their leaders have some moral concerns here, will still buy every NVIDIA chip they can get their hands on so long as NVIDIA keeps making the best chips. Then again, any sales that were happening to Chinese companies (even indirectly) – Culper Research, the short-seller that correctly called out this fiasco last year put the overall revenue figure over 20%! – will likely be decidedly more problematic here. Perhaps if employees leave the company out of disgust that would have some impact, but that would be far down the line. And let's be honest, is that really going to happen?
We're a week away from NVIDIA's always all-important earnings, which will undoubtedly be awkward yet still amazing this quarter because the rest of Big Tech has already reported their continued massive spend on AI. And again, one company benefits from this above all others.
Instead what we have here is a crisis of confidence. An industry which people seem to increasingly dislike now has its most natural figurehead mired in scandal. And just as Jensen Huang has no heir apparent at NVIDIA, there's seemingly no one else to take over his position atop the AI movement.
And with Anthropic on the verge of going public – hell of a week to start your roadshow! – and the Democrats set to take control of both the House and Senate in no small part on the back of public anti-AI sentiment, this is just awful timing.
It's also far from over. While the affair and apology may be, we're going to get details over the coming days, weeks, and months that will seal Jensen Huang's fate one way or another. Spying aside – even lobbying aside! – if NVIDIA is found to have been knowingly routing chips through Megaspeed (Alice Huang's company) to be used in China, that's game over. Jensen Huang may need a Presidential pardon at that point – which, to be clear, he would probably get!
But the reality is that it probably doesn't even need to get that far, the damage is done here. Jensen Huang will now forever be known as the AI leader who got honeypotted by the Chinese government (again, allegedly, but that distinction won't matter). He's the butt of jokes right now, but ultimately it just makes the already distrusted AI industry look foolish.
At some point, Jensen Huang will step back into the spotlight, and perhaps even to the stage. There will probably be some kind of redemption story – there always is. But he'll be more like a circus clown than that ringmaster. He'll never again command the trust in what he's saying because he was caught literally lying in public. And the AI industry must go back to the narrative drawing board again, for shame.