The Information's TITV
00:30:37 · Leo Schwartz
[00:30:37] S4: Well, this is the more maybe sober minded and less exciting analysis that I would provide, which is that even in the best case scenario for Democrats where they win a bunch of seats in the Senate, they take over the House, they still have the glaring issue that Trump is the president. Obviously, he has veto power. Overcoming a veto is very difficult. So are they gonna be able to pass their own legislation without bipartisan support, without Trump's support? That seems very unlikely. Of course, there are vehicles for that to be done, must pass bills like the Defense Authorization Act, which will actually likely be done before the next congress comes in in January. There likely will be AI provisions in that. But at the same time, whether you see a real challenge to Trump's authority over AI regulation and all of this lack of clarity we've been seeing at the agency and executive level through new legislation, the Democrats, that still faces the same steep or impossible odds of of actually passing. What will happen if Democrats are able to win one or both houses is just a lot of oversight hearings. They'll have subpoena power likely to bring some CEOs who have cozy relationships with Trump to Capitol Hill. But if anything, that will just cause more embarrassment for the companies than have actual consequences.
00:31:58 · Akash Pasricha, Leo Schwartz
[00:31:58] S0: Right. And one more question for you, Leo. So Prop 40 is the other ballot that has been getting a lot of attention in California. We saw it come up with Meta's stock split as well, because again, we didn't expect this to have been a repercussion of it, but Mark Zuckerberg is saying, If you want me to stick around in California, you've got to let me pay for this somehow. What's the latest on the way to Prop 40 ballot is looking? Are there any twists and turns this might go for? What do you think? [00:32:32] S4: Yeah. It seemed for a while like this had a real chance of passing. I think polling on propositions in California is always sort of a fool's errand and pretty unscientific. At the same time, it seemed like it had a real chance of passing, but the no side, the billionaire side, has outspent the yes side, I think, two fifty to one. They've spent over a $100,000,000 on this already, and it does seem like the polls are shifting to the proposition failing, but we'll find out tomorrow.
00:33:01 · Akash Pasricha
[00:33:01] S0: Great. Well, I want to thank you both for coming on. Leo, stick around for a minute as well because I want to talk about a story that you published as well today. That is Shane Burke, our senior data journalist here at The Information, and Leo Schwartz, our tech and politics reporter here in our newsroom. Awesome. Thanks, Akash. Whichever way the midterms go, Jensen Huang will still be pushing hard to keep his relationship sharp with everyone in Washington, DC. Several reporters in our newsroom joined forces on a new feature story that highlights how Jensen has built such a strong political capital behind the scenes. I want to bring on Leo Schwartz and Phoebe Liu to share more about their reporting. Welcome to the both of you. It is great to have you here. Phoebe, I want to start with you because you and our colleagues did a ton of great reporting here on this issue from all different angles. There's the policy angle, there's the NVIDIA angle, there's the think tank angle, there's also the OpenAI angle. And the story starts with a Slack exchange that you and our colleagues got ahold of. What was this Slack message that really perked our ears here at The Information?
00:34:13 · Phoebe Liu, Akash Pasricha
[00:34:13] S5: Yeah. So last month, senior OpenAI research scientist, Noam Brown, sent another news article around kind of a perception that OpenAI had softened its stance on chip exports, specifically advanced AI chip exports to China, and kind of asked what is our policy on export controls. And kind of the response to that was a little bit tenuous, kind of pointing at previous things that OpenAI had published saying, okay. The company supports export controls generally, but not specifying, like, certain hardware or certain countries like China. And our colleague Steph had some reporting basically also saying that internally, some OpenAI policy people had said, oh, like, we've maybe softened some of our stances on export controls, maybe for fear of angering NVIDIA and specifically its CEO, Huang. [00:35:11] S0: And so this is kind of interesting because the fear of Jensen Huang is kind of the through line here. That is what we really reported on. And so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. I mean, what's going on here? Why are they... I mean, they just want chips? Is that the idea?
00:35:11 · Akash Pasricha, Phoebe Liu, Leo Schwartz
[00:35:11] S0: And so this is kind of interesting because the fear of Jensen Huang is kind of the through line here. That is what we really reported on. And so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. I mean, what's going on here? Why are they... I mean, they just want chips? Is that the idea? [00:35:33] S5: I mean, NVIDIA's biggest lever, of course, is its ability to decide who gets how many chips, because everyone wants more chips from NVIDIA than they can get. NVIDIA, of course, has, over many, many occasions, denied that they kind of explicitly use this as a lever, but that doesn't mean the fear is not still there. Like, anything that a company can do to even create the perception that they might be able to get more chips from NVIDIA is a good thing, and I think that effectively gives NVIDIA even more sway over its biggest customers and partners. [00:36:12] S0: Leo, And, as you think about this, there's the interviews that Jensen gives in which he's quite loud about this, but then there's what he's doing behind the scenes, I guess. And this was some of the more interesting reporting we did. How has he been sort of waging this power behind the scenes? [00:36:32] S4: Yeah. I mean, this was a fun story because we really got to trace the history of NVIDIA becoming a DC company. And, you know, I I think people forget that just a few years ago, it was a much smaller gaming chip company before it became the chief allocator of the the AI revolution. So during the early Biden years [00:36:51] S0: title.
00:36:51 · Akash Pasricha, Leo Schwartz
[00:36:51] S0: title. [00:36:52] S4: In the early Biden year or the... In the Biden years before the export controls, NVIDIA didn't have that much of a presence in DC. But then when Biden started doing these export controls on ships to China, NVIDIA built up its government affairs team in DC and started getting a reputation for having very sharp elbows within the Biden administration, on the hill, in think tanks, really exerting its influence. And, you know, that's not abnormal for companies to do, but NVIDIA became the richest, and I guess now the second richest, company in the world. So obviously, it was able to hold more attention than I think other companies who tried the same game. [00:37:29] S0: Right. Know, Phoebe, when you look at this, I mean, is kind of interesting because NVIDIA is at this point now where it's actually not as favorited, I guess, as you could say. I guess in the last couple of weeks, we've seen maybe some government officials, including the president, maybe soften his unconditional support, at least a little bit for the company. Just walk us through a little bit what's going on here.